Secrets Lie in Amber
by losamantesclandestinos
Summary: Benson finds it difficult to tell anyone about what happened with William Lewis. Until Rafael Barba. Can he be the person to help her heal? Set during the events of Psycho/Therapist, Barba & Benson forge an unexpected bond. Eventual Barson. Angst/Hurt/Comfort/Drama/Romance.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: **These characters do not belong to me. They belong to Dick Wolf and NBC. We just play with them.**

Chapter One

_Foolish heart looks like we're here again_

_Same old game of plastic smile_

_Don't let anybody in._

_-_Natalie Grant, **The Real Me**

When the light hits a glass of scotch at a particular angle, the color becomes the shade of amber. If you've ever seen bugs trapped in amber, you know that the color is a mysterious brown-gold with tremendous depth. It's nothing like a simple brown or a dark gold. It's the color of autumn leaves when the light of late fall days strike them. If colors had scents, amber would be smoke and velvet and old books.

Rafael Barba kept staring at his glass, hypnotized by the colors swirling within it. His eyes were fixed on it, as if he thought he could coax the liquid to spill its secrets.

But it was silent. Like he had expected it to be.

Like people he had trusted had been.

His fingers tightened around the glass, careful to not hold it so hard he'd break it. It _was _Macallan 18 year, after all. $40 dollars a shot and that was on the cheap side.

He resisted the urge to drain the glass (because, oh god, did he want to drain it…anything to dull the pain of the fracture in his heart). The Tres Mosqueteros had once been so strong, so invincible. Never, in his wildest dreams, did he imagine that things would ever go down this way.

_Alejandro_, he thought, _mi amigo, how could you do this? We were going to go places, all of us, los tres mosqueteros. Amigos para siempre. _

But not anymore.

All that had changed in an instant.

With Alejandro's lies, his deception, his betrayal.

Barba's glass slipped from his fingers, spilling its contents on the scuffed floor of the smoky NYC bar, where he had spent so many times drinking with the squad after particularly painful defeats.

"Hijo de puta!" he swore, the glass shattering, like the illusions in his heart, in his soul.

"Barba," he heard a soft voice, like smoke-infused brandy, wafting near his ears, "are you all-right?"

He looked up from the fractured remains of his drink to see Olivia Benson standing there, hands tucked in the pockets of a long trench coat, her dark hair damp from the misty fog floating through the New York City night.

"I'm fine, Detective," he said abruptly, "I don't need someone to coddle me." His eyes looked into hers, sharply challenging.

"Goddammit, Barba," Liv's lips narrowed in a line, "you are a prickly bastard, aren't you?"

He shrugged. "I've always been known as a _pendejo_, I see no reason for that to change now, do you?"

Barba motioned to the bartender. "Another Macallan 18, please. Detective," he glanced at her, "are you going to get something or just stand there looking at me like my dog just died?"

Olivia sighed, internally debating the wisdom of staying around Barba when he was in such a mood. Then her eyes noted the way his eyes quickly left her direct gaze. She saw the flash of pain, so brief it could have been a trick of the light, quickly shuttered behind the walls of the tough, no-holds barred, balls-to-the wall prosecutor.

She sank onto the stool next to him. "Blanton's please, double shot, straight up."

He raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Whiskey, detective? I always had you pegged as a wine and beer person."

Liv grinned slightly. "Barba, I thought we'd gotten past the formalities by now. It's Olivia. And sometimes wine just doesn't get the job done."

The bartender slid Barba's Macallan 18 across the counter. "People never fail to surprise me." Barba said, in a voice so soft Olivia almost didn't hear them.

"We all have layers and masks, Barba." Olivia commented, "You know that better than anyone."

"_Fantastico_!" He snapped, "That will make me sleep better at night."

Olivia gave him a hard stare. "You're not in the courtroom now, Barba, and I'm not your enemy."

"You're right, detective….Olivia…and I apologize." Rafael Barba sighed, rubbing his face with his hand. "It's been a long week."

"I get that." she said softly. "I do."

Barba looked over at her and really looked at her for the first time. He noted the lines deepening around her eyes, the brackets of strain around her mouth. He noted her slight jump as strangers brushed past her, pushing towards the bar. The drawn look in her eyes, the hollows underneath them. She hadn't been sleeping, he guessed. Not since Lewis. Not since the squad had found her.

He wasn't the only one with his own pain, with his own demons.

Rather sharply, he asked, "Why are you here, Olivia?"

Tilting her head to one side, she looked at him calmly, "I thought that was obvious. I know this was difficult for you…"

"You know nothing." Barba's tone was brusque, his fingers clutching at his glass.

"You know what?" Olivia was a little irritated now. "You're right. This was a mistake." She got up from her chair.

"Wait." Barba said, sighing. "Sit." He looked at her, a slight smile appearing on his lips. "Smile. Drink."

Benson rolled her eyes but stayed.

"Is that your response for everything?"

"It worked, didn't it?"

She laughed.

"What kind of man are you, Rafael Barba?"

His lips turned up in a slight mockery of a smile. "What kind of man do you think I am?"

"Difficult to get to know." Olivia said honestly.

He shrugged. "I don't let everyone in. But I think that's true of everyone. _Entiendes?" _

"Yes, Rafael, I understand." She emphasized sharply. "Don't patronize me."

He ran his hand through his hair, mussing up his usually sleek locks. "I keep having to apologize to you. I'm sorry. I'm just…"

"I get it." Olivia said.

"Do you?"

"If you're going to constantly answer me with questions, we're gonna be here all night." Liv said, in slight exasperation.

"Maybe I want that." He shot back, with his quicksilver tongue.

"You do. I don't. I enjoy my sleep."

"Do you?" His eyes looked into her, scanning the dark circles only barely hidden by concealer, seeing the fragility beneath her strength, the slight tremor in her hands.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Her chin lifted as she glared at him.

Barba saw the walls slam down. He recognized them because they were as solid as his.

"I think you know." He said.

"Why don't you illuminate me?" She snapped back.

"We've never talked about what happened with Lewis…" he started off slowly, like he was talking to a slightly hostile witness.

"I don't believe that's any of your business." Benson's walls were unyielding.

"If he goes to trial, it will definitely be my business. You need to talk about it, Olivia."

"Under my terms, not yours." she snapped. "And definitely not tonight."

Barba shrugged as if he wasn't bothered.

"Tell me, detective…Olivia…what do you like to do for fun?"

Benson was thrown. "Barba, I think I just got whiplash from your change of subjects."

His lips quirked upwards in a smile. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"No…it's just…"

"Well, then, spill it, Olivia."

She laughed again, "Barba, do you ever let anyone else get in a word edgewise?"

"Rarely. So enjoy this." He smiled.

And she smiled back. Took a sip of the whiskey. Smooth, perfect, slid down her throat like water. And for a brief moment her thoughts didn't go as they usually did to the darkness. To the remembrance of hot keys against her skin, Lewis's heavy breathing against her throat, the vodka sliding down her throat as he forced her to drink…

Her hand started shaking and whiskey spilled on her plum shirt.

"Dammit."

Her hand groped blindly for a cocktail napkin.

"Olivia." Barba's voice caught her attention. "Here." He handed her one of his fine handkerchiefs.

"No, I couldn't.."

"Olivia." He said, a bit more urgently. "_Tomalo_. Take it. I've got others."

She took the handkerchief, fingers shaking, avoiding Barba's eyes. Knowing that his perceptive eyes could spot any weakness, any vulnerability. She couldn't let him see any weakness. Didn't want to see a goddamned look of pity in his eyes.

She was Olivia fucking Benson. Not anyone's victim.

The silence had gone on too long. And she could feel his eyes on her, assessing and speculating. Even over a drink, Barba was ever the prosecutor. _Talk, Olivia, talk…._

She told a bad joke that Amaro had told her the previous day, trying to get her to laugh. It was silly and it was stupid but it had made her laugh. And laughter had been in short supply at the squad lately. They were too busy trying not to walk on eggshells around her.

Barba barked out a laugh. "Olivia, that's the worst joke I've ever heard. Who the hell was responsible for inflicting that on humanity?"

Oliva smiled. "That would be Amaro."

"Amaro needs better material."

They continued to talk about everything and nothing at all.

And Benson could see the tension ease from Barba's shoulders and the shuttered look slowly leave his eyes. And when he looked at her, there was no pity in his eyes.

_He has a nice smile_.


	2. Chapter 2

Authors' note: For the sake of this story, Liv and Brian have split between the events of Surrender Benson and Psycho/Therapist.

Dialogue in bold is from **Surrender Benson**.

Chapter Two

_Every morning, every evening_

_Ain't we got fun?_

_Not much money, oh, but honey_

_Ain't we got fun?_

— Aint We Got Fun, music by Richard Whiting, lyrics by Raymond Egan and Gus Kahn

A storm was coming. New Yorkers could feel it in their bones. The air had gotten heavier in anticipation and the smell of destruction was floating in the air. It was one of those storms that would touch everyone when it came through. No one would be the same. No one would escape unscathed.

The weather had gotten even colder now. The New York City streets were streaked with the sludge of early winter snow, mixed with the gross drizzle of end-of-autumn rain storms. The prelude to the main movement.

Olivia Benson stared out of her office window, watching the rain drip down the darkened window.

He was out there, healing. Resting. Waiting.

From the wounds she had inflicted on him, deliberately. _And she brought the bedpost down, once, twice…. shrieking in a voice she barely recognized as hers. Body covered with the burns and marks he had made on it during those days. _The days she was pushing down into the darkness. Down where no one, even herself, could reach them.

She knew intellectually that doing that was counterproductive. "_In my experience, a survivor heals more quickly if they're listened to.._"

But the fear.

It was crippling, choking her from the inside out. And Benson found herself paralyzed and freezing. Her breath quickened.

_Breathe in._

_Breathe out._

_He can't hurt you anymore._

Or can he?

Beads of sweat appeared at her forehead and she leaned against the wall. She wasn't ready for this. She didn't think she'd ever be ready for this.

A sharp rap at the door.

"Detective?"

Goddamnit, she forgot she was supposed to talk to Barba today. Briefly, she closed her eyes, pulled herself together, and turned around, noting with brief amusement the periwinkle and salmon striped shirt and silver tie.

Always so sharply dressed, our Rafael.

She knew what he was here for – and felt the tension squeeze her body.

"What brings you to our neck of the woods, Counselor?"

Barba's sharp eyes had missed none of Benson's apprehension. He adjusted his body language accordingly.

"We're supposed to review your testimony, detective Benson. Or had you forgotten?" He would not let her sink into self-pity. He needed her together. _Had _to have her together.

She gave him a glare. "You think something like that would slip my mind?"

His eyes softened slightly. "I don't know, Olivia. You tell me."

"Can you give me a couple hours?" She asked. "I have some paperwork to finish up here." Her eyes dropped to the small pile of papers on her desk.

Rafael wasn't fooled; his eyes caught everything. Including the slight tremor in Benson's hands as she shuffled her "paperwork" in her hands.

"You're stonewalling, Olivia, but I'll let it pass. For now."

He stepped closer to her.

"Olivia, _m__írame. _Look at me."

Benson's eyes caught Barba's. There was nothing in his gaze except compassion and concern. To his credit, he had managed to keep the prosecutorial shark hidden.

For now.

"I know this is difficult." He told her. "I won't pretend to say I know how difficult it is because I don't. But Lewis is going to trial and we need to go over every inch of your testimony. There cannot be _any _lose ends, _any _things they can use against you. _Entiendes_?"

"I understand." She said softly. And turned away from him to look at the window to watch the beginnings of the storm rain down.

Barba didn't say anything for a long moment, considering his words carefully.

"Olivia, I am not your shrink. I am not asking you to tell me how you feel about this. I am merely asking for the details of what happened to you during those days with Lewis. It needs to be done."

He turned to walk out of the office."I will be in my office for a few more hours. You know where to find me. And, Olivia?"

She didn't turned around."Yes?"

"You want the bastard put away? Help me."

_**You don't have it in you.**_

Benson turned around to speak but Barba was striding briskly out of the precinct, his shoulders tight with tension.

She sighed, knowing that, once again, he was right.

_Come on, Olivia, get it together. You can do this. You NEED to do this._

_A few hours later in the squad room  
><em>

The storm was bad tonight. What had started as a light rain/drizzle had turned into a thunderstorm of epic proportions. Benson could hear the sirens from multiple locations in the city as NYC drivers forgot how to drive in storms and rammed their cars into one another.

The squad room was almost entirely dark now. Everyone had gone home, except for Olivia.

She was all alone. Just her and her memories.

Go back to her apartment? No, she wasn't ready. Too dark. Too lonely.

Ever since Brian had packed up his things and left... the apartment was a hollow reminder of what could have been. What would never the cleaning, no amount of bleach could take out the ghost of William Lewis. The ghost that followed her wherever she went. Taunting her from the shadows, from the darkness, when the silence was as thick as a winter blanket.

No, she wasn't going back there. Not yet.

Oh, yes, the demons liked to come out and play in the dark. They danced in her living room, while she tossed and turned in her bed, trying to drown out the images of Lewis taunting her, touching her while she was bound, the feel of the hot keys against her flesh.

_I__** don't need sleep. Not when I get on a roll.**_

_No, goddammit, she wasn't going to go there._

She reached inside her desk drawer, fumbling around as the lights inside the squad flickered. She felt her fingers grip a glass bottle. Taking it out, she noted the light reflecting in its amber depths. Hypnotizing, really... the colors of gold and brown dancing together in beautiful harmony. Like the colors of leaves in a New York autumn, in a time before lost innocence.

Before Lewis had gotten to her.

"_**You think you've put people through hell? It will rain back down on you."**_

"_**Let it rain."**_

She unscrewed the top of the quasi-expensive bottle she had grabbed from the corner liquor store the other night. It went down smoothly, just as it had the night she had drunk it with Barba in that smoky bar.

She took another drink.

"_**You don't get to say no any more."**_

And the amber liquid slid down her throat, like the smoothest of rare liqueurs.

"**_One move, lights out_**."

And the tigers crouched, their teeth shining bright in the shadows.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: **The characters aren't ours. They belong to Dick Wolf and NBC. Dialogue in bold italics taken from **_**October Surprise**_**.**

_You shoot me down, but I won't fall__  
><em>_I am titanium__  
><em>_You shoot me down, but I won't fall _

_I am titanium_

_-_**Titanium**_**, **_David Guetta

Chapter Three

Rafael Barba shrugged on his Burberry trench coat and looked out the windows of his elegant office. _Dios_, he thought, it's bad out there. Perhaps he should wait before driving home to his spacious, lonely apartment on the Upper East Side. Rafael enjoyed the finer things, he was not ashamed of that. But, as he thought back to the events with Alejandro Munoz, perhaps Nicolas Amaro had not been entirely wrong.

"_**You're afraid to go after Munoz…because while he stayed in the hood**__**, **__**in**__** el barrio, **__**and played man of the people, you went off to Harvard and pretended you were one of the **__**gringitos**__**." **_

On some level, he _had _been trying to be one of the _gringitos. _There was much of his early life that was not pleasant, going without had not been a good experience for him, and one he preferred to forget. He had grown up poor, the son of a single mother, and just to survive had been difficult. Smaller than the rest of the _barrio _boys, he had often been bullied and teased. It did not help his case that he was academically gifted. He loved reading and debating but that undercut his _machismo _in the eyes of the more athletic of his classmates.

He had been fortunate to have found friends in Eddy and Alex. They had taken him under their wing, the slight, bookish, sharp-tongued Rafi. He had still been Rafi then, before things had changed…before they had made choices that would alter the bond between them completely. In Alex and Rafael's case, that bond from the _barrio _had shattered completely.

Rafael's life was full of regrets but very few of those regrets were sharper than the loss of his friendship with his _compañeros _from his childhood. They had been like _familia_, closer than many families in the _barrio_. And the loss stung. More than he had ever imagined it could.

"_**You're my brother, Rafi…you were always the smart one**__."_

The rain was pounding harder now. The visibility almost non-existent. This storm was going to be a bad one. Rafael sighed, rubbed his hand with his face, as he had been doing too often of late. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he noted that the lines around his mouth and eyes came less from delight and more from the winds that were constantly buffeting at him now. There seemed to be no escape from them.

His thoughts flickered to Olivia Benson. Who, he had noted, had _not _shown up to review her testimony with him that day as he had not so subtly reminded her.

But he couldn't blame her. He had poured through the documents and reports following her ordeal with Lewis and it had sickened him to his core. The things Lewis had done to her had been detailed in the medical examination. Rafael had a hardened stomach but even his stomach had been churning as he had read page after page of what Lewis had done, not just to Liv, but to Vanessa Mayer's mother and father.

He would never forget those terrifying days in the squad. He had been paying a visit to the precinct when Fin and Rollins had called in from Liv's apartment, which had been littered with souvenirs of Lewis' visit with the detective. Burned cigarettes in china cups. Hot wires and keys. Pillows torn, glasses shattered. Drops of blood.

Barba had seen Cragen's face go white. Amaro had dropped his coffee all over the precinct floor but nobody cared. Who gave a damn about cheap coffee spilled out on the floor when they had heard the words: _Lewis has her_. Rafael remembered gripping a precinct chair tightly, so tightly he thought he had driven splinters from the wood into the fleshy part of his hand.

_He had been discussing a case with Amaro and Munch when a shattering had broken the noise in the squad room. Everyone instinctively knew that the sound of that glass breaking had meant something beyond their worst fears had happened. It had come from behind Cragen's door._

_Amaro had been the first to rap on Cragen's door._

_"Captain," he had raised his voice slightly. "Is everything okay in there?"_

_The door opened and Cragen stepped out, his face looking older and more drawn than Barba had ever seen him._

"_He has her." Was all he said. Was all he had to say._

_That was enough to galvanize the room into action._

_No one had to ask who "he" was or who "her" was. There was only one __**he**__ that could elicit that tone of voice from Cragen. Lewis._

_The suspected-never-convicted serial rapist who, through Barba's own failure, had been allowed to walk scot-free with a smirk on his handsome face. _

_Barba remembered the chill that had run down his spine when Lewis had sauntered out of the courtroom next to his pretty attorney. Rafael knew Lewis was guilty of every alleged crime, he knew it in his bones, yet the man had outwitted them all. _

_The fox who outfoxed all the foxes._

Back in the present, Barba's hand gripped his glass tightly, his knuckles whitening against the delicate crystal, the guilt spreading through his system like a festering cancer. He should have done better.

Could have done better.

This was his fault.

_Cragen and Amaro had raced off to Liv's apartment. Despite his heavy caseload, Barba had sent a swift text to the DA, apprising him of the situation and said he would not be in that afternoon. He had spent that afternoon instead standing in the wreckage of Liv's apartment, trying not to let fear grip him by the throat._

_All of them had frozen upon entering the room. It smelled of blood, of burned flesh, of urine, and of fear. Cragen had shaken out of his freeze first, immediately taking charge, sealing off the room. _

"_Bag __everything__!" He had barked. "This apartment is now a crime scene."_

_There had been very few times in Rafael Barba's life where he had felt helpless. He had always had to be the _hombre de la familia_ since his _madre_ had been all alone. He had to learn to survive using his wits, since he had not been gifted in the athleticism that his classmates had. But for that moment, stepping into Liv's apartment for the first time, surveying the wreckage from the consequences of his failure to put Lewis behind bars, he had felt totally and completely helpless._

_At a loss for words. Wracked with a terrifying grief that gripped him tighter than an anaconda with its meal._

_Being at a total loss for words was a new sensation for the sharp-tongued prosecutor who had been nicknamed _ _**El Tiburón**__ (the Shark) by terrified clerks who been the hapless recipients of the sharp edge of his wit more than a few times._

_Rafael Eduardo Barba had been paralyzed with fear and guilt. It had only lasted a few moments (Rafael was not one to show weakness if it could be avoided) but it must have shown on his face. For Nicolas Amaro had looked at him with a mixture of understanding and sympathy on his face. And had tipped his head, acknowledging and respecting the ADA's grief._

_It was the first true kindness that Amaro had displayed towards Rafael. Normally, their status quo was a cool kind of civility at best. But today they were united in their grief and their fear for one of their own._

_Rafael had to get out of there. _

_He took a deep breath as he stepped out into the heat, preferring the warmth of the heat of summer to the deep chill of fear that lingered in Benson's ravaged apartment. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to recall his favorite scents of summer…the smell of hot buttered popcorn on Coney Island, the tang and bite of the ocean air, the taste of his favorite childhood snack, the _raspadura_. _

_Anything to drive away the smell of burnt flesh, hair, and blood._

_Bile rose in his throat as he thought of what Benson must be enduring at Lewis' hands. He ran his hand through his hair, across his face, desperately trying to find a way in which he could best help._

_But he was numb._

"_You ok, Counselor?" Amaro's voice interrupted his contemplation._

"_I'm fine." He bit off sharply. _

"_None of this is your fault." Despite his faults, Amaro could not be accused of not being perceptive._

"_I know that." Barba snapped. _

"_Do you?" Nick gave him a hard stare._

"_Get the man who did this and I'll make sure he never sees the light of day again." Barba's words were intense but so low Amaro could barely catch them. He nodded to Barba politely and hurried to help in the search._

Barba drank his scotch quickly, trying to dispel the memories that had seared themselves into his brain. Trying to erase the horrific images that the reports had conjured up in his mind.

Trying to forget those horrible days of uncertainty, of fear. Of wondering if he would ever again see the woman whose friendship he had begun to find indispensable.

Lewis deserved nothing better than to rot in prison. Death was too good for a _pendejo_ like him. There would be no justice in that. And Rafael would do everything within his power to make sure William Lewis had no second chance. Not again.

Never again would he let that man have the power to terrorize another human being. _Nunca más_

Barba removed his coat. The storm was still raging, like a roaring lion, and he was going nowhere anytime soon. The lights in his office flickered on and off, twinkling like manic stars in the approaching darkness. No doubt the power would be disappearing soon.

He reached for his emergency scotch, again, nothing but the best – a bottle of sixteen year old Macallan. Everyone had long since gone, having been terrified into leaving early by weather reports. And it appears that they were the smart ones, he mused, as he poured his scotch into a crystal glass, watching the hidden lights dance and twinkle in the flickering office lights.

Yes, they were indeed the smart ones.

And he? Well, he was here now, alone, in the gathering darkness, with just a scotch and his memories.

As it always had been and as it likely always would be.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: **You know the drill. Characters belong to Dick and NBC.**

Chapter Four

_Who am I?_

_Can I conceal myself forevermore?_

_If I speak, I am condemned_

_If I stay silent, I am damned._

_-_Who Am I, _Les Miserables_

Olivia shook herself out of her momentary stupor and looked over the clock. 9:15! _How the hell did it get so late so quickly? _She quickly put the top back on her whiskey and slid it into the fake bottom of her file cabinet. _It was just a glass_, she told herself, _no big deal_. _One time thing. _She threw on her trench coat and headed towards the door.

_Damn_. She just remembered that she hadn't met with Barba to review her testimony. She winced; Liv knew that this was something that she had to do and it really wasn't like her to be this careless. But her nights had been getting shorter with the time to Lewis' trial shrinking. Waking at 3am drenched in sweat from a flashback was getting more common now…again.

While Lewis had been recuperating, Liv's many sessions with Lindstrom had gone a long way to help ease the flashbacks and the other effects of PTSD. She had come so far in such a short time but, with a growing sense of frustration, she felt like she was sliding back. _When is he ever going to be out of my life, out of my head? How much more must he take from me?I have lost ENOUGH. He doesn't get to take any more from me_.

_I can do this_.

Making a decision, she decided to walk, well, run (the storm still had shown no signs of easing up anytime soon) and Liv had no desire to be caught out in the middle of it. _Ah well_, she thought, _who needs daylight and nice weather to take a nice run? _She opened the squad room door and made a quick dash for it.

It didn't take her long to get to Barba's office. Fortunately, people were still working late and the doors were not locked. She shook off the rain from her trench coat and stomped her feet on the carpet. Her boots made little sound on the marble floors as she quickly walked to his office.

With a bit of relief and some trepidation, she saw the lights on his office. Liv braced herself; she was never quite sure what to expect with Barba. A majority of the time their casual conversations, even over a drink, somehow turned into a cross-examination. He was very hard to read, even harder to get to know. But she sensed he was a good man, although difficult, thorny, and a little bit high maintenance. When she talked to him, he really listened. And when he asked her for "sidebars", he really wanted her input. It wasn't simple lip service.

And, her lips turned up in a wry smile, he does have a rather interesting sense of style.

Liv respected Barba, even liked him a little.

The shattering of glass caught her attention and she hurried to the door. Jiggling the knob, she found it was locked. Liv rapped on the glass, "Barba?" She asked. "You in there?" Another sound of glass shattering made her jump and she cursed herself as she found herself flinching.

"Rafael?" She tested his first name.

The door swung open. Rafael Barba stood there, in his usual sartorial splendor, a bit disheveled. His collar was undone, jacket tossed over a chair, and his hair rumpled. Gone was the usually put-together legal barracuda and here was just a man.

Benson wasn't sure what to think. She was so used to seeing him as the ferocious legal tiger, it was always disconcerting to see him as a man, vulnerable to his own demons and monsters.

"Is this a bad time, Counselor?" Liv peered into the room, noting the shards of glass scattered on the floor and wet stains on the probably pretty expensive carpet.

"No, no, of course not." Barba ran his hand through his hair, trying to repair his dignity and his walls. "How can I help you, Olivia?"

"I know we were supposed to review my testimony." Liv started, feeling a little awkward, noting his obvious discomfort.

"Don't worry about it." He flashed a tight smile at her, bending over to pick up shards of glass. He swore as the edge of one of the crystal shards slashed into his finger. And, for a moment he forgot his customary elegance and reached back to his childhood trove of vulgar obscenities, muttering a few choice Spanish expletives.

Liv stared at the blood, transported back to when she first entered her trashed apartment, seeing the blood stains on the floor. She froze.

"Detective!" She didn't hear Barba's sharp bark, hypnotized as she was by the blood. _There was so much of it…on the floor….staining the carpet. Burn it all. Burn it all_. "Olivia." His voice came again, still sharp. She still could not move and cursed herself for her weakness.

"_LIV." _His voice was the softest she had heard it yet. Startled, she looked into his eyes. "Are you all-right?" He asked softly.

"I should be asking you the same thing." Benson quickly pulled herself together. He scanned her face quickly and turned back to his finger, now wrapped in a white handkerchief.

"Long day. _Todo está bueno._" He waved his hand, completely dismissing the shards of glass on the floor.

"Are you sure that's all it is?" Liv turned his inquisitiveness back on him.

He smiled faintly, "Using my tricks, Olivia? You should know better." The quirk of his lips let her know he was more amused than offended.

"I'm serious, Rafael." Liv said, seating herself. "You okay?"

"Never been better." He smiled, a little sadly. "Just some ghosts from the past. You know how it is." He turned and looked out the window, a strange glint in his eyes, as if from the faint shadow of tears. But that was not possible, was it?

Barba the invulnerable with tears in his eyes?

Benson stared at the floor, at the shards of glass still there, shimmering in the faint light.

"Yes," she said softly, "I know how it is."

"But enough about me." Barba said, pouring another glass. "What about you?"

She smiled. "Nothing to tell. I came to see you about going over my testimony. I'm just a little late."

He looked at his silver Burberry watch. "You have an interesting definition of late, Olivia."

She smiled. "Better late than never."

He sat on the edge of his desk and looked at her consideringly. "Well, it's a bit late to start tonight but we can get preliminaries out of the way."

"Fire away, Counselor."

He scanned her face closely. "Are you ready for this, Olivia?"

She barked out a laugh. "Define ready."

He was very serious now. "Are you going to be able to tell your story and stick to it?"

Liv couldn't meet his eyes. "I'll be fine."

"Olivia." He crouched down in front of her. "I need to know if you can do this." His eyes grabbed hers, held them. She saw no pity, just compassion and kindness, and a steel determination.

"I can do this." She said firmly. "He doesn't get to get away. Not this time."

"Good." He stood up. "That's what I needed to hear. Now," he leaned back on the desk, "are there any things I should know about? Things that they could use to sandbag us?" He tilted his head to one side, waiting her response.

"No." Far from being the firm denial that she was going for, it came out unsure and tentative.

"Olivia, if you're holding something back, I need to know. If you don't tell me, Lewis will find it, he will use it, and he will get away again." Rafael held her gaze intently.

Benson stayed silent.

Barba sighed and decided not to push. For now.

He handed her a glass of scotch. "Drink."

Olivia didn't bother to tell him that she already had been drinking and took the glass. Took a large swallow and coughed slightly.

"What's in that thing? Motor oil?" She made a slight face.

He looked mildly offended but the slight twinkle in his eyes assured Benson that he wasn't upset. "First, you're hours late and now you're insulting my scotch? Really, Olivia." He smirked.

She had to laugh. And Barba relaxed his guard slightly.

"Feeling better?" He inquired, eyebrow raised.

"I wasn't feeling badly before."

"Please don't lie to me." Barba said seriously, looking at her. "We both know the truth."

Benson's fingers tightened around the glass and the lump in her throat grew bigger. She had talked about her ordeal with Lewis so many times with Lindstrom that she had her "lines" memorized. But it was different when she had to talk about it with a colleague, with someone that she was beginning to consider a friend.

The last thing she wanted Barba to do was see her as a victim. To treat her like she was a piece of fragile china, ready to shatter at any moment. Dealing with that from members of the precinct had been exhausting and demoralizing. Lewis had tortured her, humiliated her, degraded her in unfathomable and unspeakable ways – but he had not made her weak.

That was a power he did _not_ have. And a power she did _not_ want to give him by appearing vulnerable and helpless.

"Liv," Barba said, his voice firm but gentle. "What he did to you was unconscionable. No one would blame you for not being fine."

For a long moment, she didn't say anything at all, just stared at the golden amber liquid in her glass, her throat dry.

"It's no weakness to say you are not okay." It's as if he was reading her thoughts. But, of course, that was ridiculous – Barba was merely very astute. _Not_ psychic.

A single tear rolled down her cheek and she turned her face away in shame.

_And she brought down the bedpost once, twice, three times on Lewis handcuffed to the bed, letting out an animal cry of rage and anguish, a cry that had been boiling up in her body and her soul over the past few days. She screamed and she sobbed as she heard the crack of his bones._

Barba put his hand over hers in a rare physical display of concern and solicitude.

"We don't need to talk about this tonight, Liv. But we do need to do this."

Benson smiled wanly. "You know what I tell survivors? That they heal more quickly when they have a chance to be heard. And, yet, I can't bring myself to follow my own advice. What kind of person does that make me?"

"Human." Barba said simply.


	5. Chapter 5

_Disclaimer: _**Guess that? We don't own these characters. They belong to Dick Wolf and NBC. And, with that, consider the rest of these chapters "disclaimed." Dialogue in bold and italics from Law and Order: SVU 'October Surprise.'**

Chapter 5

_Let the right one in_

_Let the old things fade_

_Put the tricks and schemes away (for good)_

_-_Morrissey

"I can't believe it's so late." Benson said, looking at her watch.

"Time flies when you're - not - having fun?' Barba quipped.

"It's 10:15. I was only going to stay for a few minutes. I should go."

Barba looked out the window. "You really want to venture out in this?" He looked back at her and shrugged. "It's up to you, of course, but you're welcome to stay and relish my delightful company until the storm passes."

Liv smiled slightly. "Are you just trying to get an early start on coaching my testimony?"

Rafael looked a little offended. "Olivia, would I do that?"

She gave him the evil eye. "Barba, do I look like a fool to you?"

"Okay," he smirked, "maybe I would. But not tonight." He looked at her closely.

"You dodged my question before. Don't think I don't notice these things." He said. "Seriously, are you okay?"

She gave her glass a hard stare before looking up and smiling tightly at him. "Could be better. Could be worse. I'm not complaining. I'd be even better if people would quit asking me if I was fucking okay."

Rafael took a long swallow out of his glass before responding. "Liv, we may not be the best of friends, you and I, but you can talk to me."

"I already have a shrink." Benson said defensively. "I don't need another one."

Rafael just gave her a look. But not his usual searching, somewhat feral, I'm-looking-for-your-weakness gaze. His eyes were softer now, compassionate, but not pitying.

"Liv." Was all he said.

Was all he needed to say.

She bit her lip and looked down at her hands.

"Brian left."

"Ah." Was Barba's only response.

Liv looked at him somewhat suspiciously, waiting a snarky quip or comment. "What, nothing to say, counselor?"

He smiled. "I'm just listening. Not judging."

Somewhat flustered, she didn't respond and he leaned closer.

"It's okay, Olivia. Sometimes things just don't work out. And it's not any one person's fault over the other's. It's life. Just the way things happen."

"I thought this was it, Rafael." She said softly, her iron-clad walls starting to crack a little. "I really thought this was it."

"Let me tell you a story," he said, "of a young man from the barrio who had two other friends. You remember me telling you about _los tres mosqueteros_. Well, Yelina Garcia (now Yelina Muñoz) also grew up with us. All of us were friends through the years during Catholic school. She was charming, gracious, witty…everything this mouthy young man" Rafael gestured at himself, "could have ever wanted. I loved her a long time, all through high school, college and beyond, we even dated a while. But when it came to Alex, there was no way I could compete. I mean, this was Alex Muñoz, all of us knew he was bound to do something great with his life. He was the one going places."

"What about you?" She tilted her head to the side, scanning his face.

"_**When I was seven years old, my mother told me, 'Stay with Alex…he'll be mayor of New York someday.' She never said that about me.**_As for Yelina? She always wanted to do something more with her life than be the wife of an ADA. She and Alex were the perfect fit. Did I love her? Absolutely. But sometimes things are simply not meant to be." He gave a dismissive shrug, taking a sip from his scotch.

"There's been no one else since then?" Benson prodded gently.

"Oh, there have been a few." He looked blankly into his glass. "There was a man I loved very much in law school. He was a member of my class, quite intelligent – and, believe it or not, had more of a mouth than I did. My friends used to tease me about him, 'Rafi,' they'd say, 'I think you've met your match in this one.' Besides Yelina, he was the only other person I truly loved romantically. One of the finest people I've ever known and one of the few that really had my heart. He's doing well for himself now, I think he's a district attorney in Massachusetts." He shrugged, as if to try to prove to himself and to her that he didn't give a fuck.

But he wasn't fooling anybody.

He looked into his glass, running his fingers over the rim, somewhat startled that he had made that admission to her.

Barba felt her steady gaze upon him and got somewhat defensive. Trying to erect the walls that had started to crack. Trying to cloak himself in the mantle of flip invulnerability that served him so well in court.

"You know better than anyone, Liv, that you can't help who you love. It's never simple – like life, it's always complicated. And, sometimes, no matter what you do, it's not quite enough." He said, with a slight tinge of bitterness in his voice.

Olivia didn't say anything more a moment, simply looked at him, seeing an unusual vulnerability in the wiry ADA, someone who was known for never showing any weakness himself and exploiting the weaknesses of others in his courtroom.

She placed a soft hand over his.

"I'm not judging you, Rafael. We love who we love."

He looked down at their interlocked fingers.

_This is why they love her. Why her squad would follow her to hell and back. Why victims feel safe with her._

"Brian and I have…had been stuck for a long time." She said, after a long sip of her scotch. "I could not bring myself to talk to him about what had happened with Lewis during those days." She swallowed hard. "I told myself I didn't want to put those images in his head, that once they were there, they would never be able to be erased. And I couldn't let him carry that weight. He thought I was protecting myself. And maybe I was and still am. I just couldn't give anyone else the burden of knowing what had happened to me. I didn't want them treating me as something less than I am, as weak, as a _victim_. "

"You're no victim, Olivia. You're a know that."

She laughed a little. "You sound like Lindstrom." And she sobered. "I don't know." She whispered. "Sometimes, when they don't think I'm watching, I see them look at me and whisper. Wondering if I'm okay, wondering if I'm going to crack, wondering if the next case I handle is going to be the one to send me over the edge. I'm not made of goddamned china."

"It's not always about you, Olivia." Rafael said quietly.

She started to look offended then he continued. "Perhaps they're worried about themselves. Worried about their own vulnerabilities. Makes them face their own mortality. At their core, people can be self-centered. It's just human nature. They worry about themselves too."

Benson looked thoughtful.

"I'm not saying that's what it is," he said, "just saying that it might not be you at all. So don't jump to conclusions. Okay?"

She nodded.

"And one other thing?" Rafael added, smirking. "I never did care for Cassidy."

Liv smacked him on the arm. "Are you always this big an asshole?"

"Always." He toasted her. "Care for some more scotch?"

She laughed. Truly laughed. For the first time in a very long time.

And she saw him try, unsuccessfully, to conceal a grin behind his glass.

He really did have nice eyes.

**12:00am Barba's Office (still)**

"I really do need to get home." Liv started to stand, finally feeling the weight of her day. Of her life.

"I was supposed to be asleep hours , when did it get to be midnight?" Rafael cursed.

"Right after 11:59." Benson retorted.

"Don't be a smartass, Benson. That's my job." Barba smirked.

"Oh, I didn't know you had a monopoly on that. Who died and made you executive smart-ass?"

"_Executive smart-_ass is part of my job description." He gave her a half-smile.

"On a more serious note," Liv said, "when is Lewis scheduled to go to trial?"

"Soon." Barba said. "Most likely within the next week or two."

"That soon?" Her face whitened. Even in the darkness, Barba could see the tinge of fear cross her features.

"I'm afraid so." He said brusquely. "We have to do this, Olivia. You need to tell me what happened during those days with Lewis. Everything."

For a long moment she didn't say anything at all and Rafael noticed her hands start to tremble.

He stepped closer to her. "Liv," he said, in a softer, kinder voice, "you can do this. You're not the one on trial here."

She stepped away from him and turned away. "Aren't I? You don't know what I've done, Barba. What I was and am capable of doing. You don't _know_."

He put a hand on her arm. Felt her freeze. Gently rubbed her arm to ease her rising panic.

"Olivia, look at me." She turned around reluctantly. "Let's just take this one step at a time. Let's go over your story first and worry about the rest later. No use borrowing trouble before we have to, understand?"

Feeling vaguely ashamed of her weakness and fear, Benson nodded. "Thank you, Barba."

He gave her a gentle smirk, with a hint of that legal barracuda hovering around its edges, "What have I told you about calling me Barba?"

"And what have I told _you_ about giving me orders, Counselor?" She quipped, a faint grin on her face.

"Touché, detective." He tipped his head, smiling, giving her the point.

She touched her hand to his. "Thank you, _Rafael_."


	6. Chapter 6

_**Author's Note**__: First, I want to thank my reviewers. I appreciate the kind words and the constructive criticisms greatly. So there have been some needed changes made to chapter five that I feel will serve the character(s) better. So thank you all for helping to make this story a better one. Second, we are now heading into the Psycho/Therapist/Lewis part of the story and portions of this will definitely diverge from canon. I will do my best to avoid OOC but no promises._

_This initial chapter is rather short. The next one will be considerably longer than this. This chapter and the ones following were particularly challenging to write, so please forgive me for any errors._

_**Disclaimer**__: Dialogue from Educated Guess, Surrender Benson, Psycho/Therapist, and Her Negotiation are all in bold italics. Those words are not mine. Characters belong to Dick Wolf and NBC._

Chapter 6

_'Cause there's no kind__  
><em>_Of loving that can__  
><em>_Make this all right_

_And I suddenly feel  
>Like a different person<em>

—Fiona Apple, **The Child Is Gone**

_**"What I did to her? You should be so lucky someone does that to you**__." - Lewis (Her Negotiation)_

Benson sat up in bed, breathing heavily, soaked in sweat. She ran her hands over her face, the trembling in them worse than it ever had been before. Her hair was matted to her face, just like the night she had been…_No_, _she wasn't going to go there_. She flipped on the light; there was no way she was going back to sleep now. Not with those nightmares waiting to spring, crouching, dark and sleek like jaguars, in the dark jungle of her subconscious.

She quickly flipped on the light next to her bed and moved quickly through out the apartment, turning on all the lights, banishing the shadows. Liv began to practice the breathing her therapist had taught her…._1, 2, 3, breathe in….1, 2, 3 breathe out_….Reaching the kitchen, she went to the sink and splashed cold water on her face. Trying to keep the contents of her stomach, as pitiful as they were, from emptying.

For a moment, she just stood there, hands gripping the sink, knuckles white.

The digital clock on the table blinked. **2:00AM. **Still had three hours of the night left to go. Then it was time.

Time to tell Barba what had really happened with Lewis.

"_**You had it for me from the get**__."_

Her hands started to shake again.

Vaguely she considered calling Barba, wondering if he was awake. Wondered if he could sleep with the knowledge that he had let a man walk.

_This was all his fault. Fuck you, Rafael Barba. FUCK YOU._

She slammed her hand against the sink_, _fighting against the sudden bout of rage. As Lewis' trial had gotten closer, Liv had been having bouts of controllable, but worrying, anger. She had expressed her concerns to Lindstrom.

"_I feel like I'm spiraling out of control." She had said. "I don't want that."_

"_That's a very natural feeling." He told her. "You went through a horrific ordeal. He traumatized you, degraded you in almost every way possible. And now you'll be seeing him in court." He held up his hand as she started to interject. "I know you know all this. But you're going to be rehashing every moment of what he did to you. It's only natural that you will be anxious, emotional and angry about reliving those moments. But you're strong, Olivia. __**You survived the abuse, you will survive the recovery**__. You don't give yourself enough credit. This too shall pass."_

She clung tightly to those words and reached down deep inside herself to try to find peace.

Trying not to be angry at Barba…whose only real sin was not being clever enough for Lewis.

**(Barba's Apartment - Upper East Side - 2:00AM)**

Barba couldn't sleep. Not even the Macallan was working tonight. In a few hours, he would be reviewing Olivia's testimony with her. His stomach clenched. It had been one thing to review the reports - as horrifying as they were - but it would be very different hearing it come from her.

Having to look in her eyes as she had to recount - yet again - the degradation Lewis had put her through. Having to see the courageous detective's eyes fill with fear as she recalled the moments where she had lain completely helpless at the mercurial "mercy" of a sociopath.

Rafael could never forgive himself for having let that man walk out of the courtroom. Every night since he had first lost (Rafael had to be honest with himself, he _had _lost) to Lewis, he had replayed all of his arguments, wondering what he could have done differently.

Once again, he found himself back in the ME's lab, the body of poor brutalized Alice Parker lying on a slab, just inches away. He had tried to avert his gaze, to give the woman some respect. She had gotten so little in life, she at least deserved that.

Benson and Rollins had been having a heated "discussion" with Melinda and it was clear that their patience was at an end and Warner's temper was getting somewhat frayed.

He had intervened, trying to defuse the tension.

"_**Detectives, let it go."**_

That hadn't worked well.

He remembered vividly the argument that ensued. Months later, it still haunts him.

"_**And add a murder charge? It's going to be hard enough to prove rape….They'll argue immediate outcry, excited utterance, defense will argue he was denied the right to question his accuser…**__"_

Benson had gotten up in his face then. Enraged, her eyes flashing with fury. Even then, he couldn't help but admire her spirit and passion. The way she was willing to fight tooth and nail for the victims.

"_**He KILLED her!"**_

Unfortunately, that statement wasn't going to work with the jury. And Barba knew it.

He also knew that Lewis probably HAD killed Alice Parker. But proving it was another matter.

"_**He's never even been convicted**__. __**If we can put him away for four to seven years…" **_He saw the look of absolute outrage on their faces and hurried to add, "_**it's a start. It's a START!**__"_

Rollins looked at him with disgust. He could see the "_Four to seven fucking years for a fucking scumbag like Lewis?" _written all over her face. He refrained from adding that they would be lucky to even get that.

"_**I used to like you**__." _

He had shrugged. _Oh, well, can't please everybody_. _I'm not here to be liked. That's not part of my job. And I can't manufacture evidence out of thin air. I'm a prosecutor, not a magician. _

Barba knew he had been right in everything that he had told them. It _had_ been an uphill battle from the beginning. There _had _been very little he could do to nail Lewis on the harsher charges. But knowing that he had just been doing his job didn't comfort Barba.

_Damn the job_. It was a cold and chilly bedfellow in the deep shadows of the night. Since Benson's ordeal and knowing that Lewis was not behind bars for good, Barba's sleep had been less and less each night. Soon eight hours of sleep had turned into seven, and seven had turned into five. Now he was lucky if he got four and a half hours.

But he counted it a small price to pay in comparison to what Benson had to endure.

A small price to pay for what he had let happen.

When he first had strolled into the squad room that brilliant autumn Sunday afternoon only to be informed that this was a simple lewdness case, he had snorted in disbelief. _They had interrupted him during a very pleasant encounter for a simple misdemeanor? _He had been irritable and, in his mind, justifiably so. But Rollins had been adamant that something was seriously wrong with this guy.

Barba had observed him behind the glass window. Watched him carefully, trying to read his body language. Lewis had seemed charming enough…then Barba had heard him "confess." In very deliberate, stomach-churning hypotheticals. Goading Benson, playing with her, sliding underneath her skin.

Like a cat with a mouse. A predator with its prey.

He had been nauseated. It was immediate verification that Rollins' hunch about this guy had been dead on.

But Lewis had been clever.

_Clever like a fox_.

And he had outmaneuvered Rafael Barba.

Not again. _Not this time_.

He stared out the window of his apartment, watching the pinks and oranges of dawn appear over the skyline.

It was going to be a beautiful day. But not for Rafael Barba or Olivia Benson.

Another storm was coming.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Author's Note**_: _A large portion of these next chapters will have dialogue straight from the episode. They will all be clearly indicated in bold italics to indicate that the words are not mine. In addition, the voice of the story will take a marked change to emphasize the intensity of the events occurring. This was a difficult chapter to write so, please, be gentle._

_The story changes rating here for reasons that will become clear._

_**Disclaimer**__: _The characters, select portions of the dialogue and the events of the Lewis saga are not mine. They belong to Dick Wolf and NBC. Any interpretations, extrapolations, and additions are mine.

Chapter 7

"_**That's the endgame, sweetheart. We got a lot of shock and awe to go before we do that." ~ William Lewis, **_**Surrender Benson**

The courtroom's empty in the early morning. Despite the amount of people walking around outside, the building is still fairly quiet. It's disconcerting. Benson finds the sound of people reassuring, it keeps her from sinking too far into the silence. Keeps her from sinking too far into her memories.

But here she is.

Barba's already there, looking dapper in his crisp white shirt and grey pinstriped vest, obviously high quality and expensive, stacks of papers on one of the tables. He looks fresh, alert - as if he's had ten hours of sleep instead of just three.

He's running on the fumes of at least five and one-quarter cups of coffee. But she doesn't know that.

She's been in this place many times before, been seated here many times before. But not like this.

Benson sits in the witness stand. It's confining; and she feels herself begin to sweat. _Oh god, not here, not now. Keep it together, Olivia. You haven't even begun to talk yet._

Barba's shuffling through some papers.

He looks up at her and his lips turn up in a half smile, his eyes serious: "How are you, detective?" He keeps it professional so they both can keep it together.

She finds it hard to meet his gaze. "I'm okay. Let's get on with this." He nods, recognizing that she doesn't really want to _talk_, she just wants to get this _done. _She just wants this _over_. They both do.

"First question." He says, looking down at his papers.

He's taking a while so her mind drifts off, going to the unsettling dream she had the night before, Lindstrom had suggested slowing time down and before she knew it, they had been kissing. And Lewis was standing there, looking at them accusingly.

Staring at them. "_**What're you two doing?**_**"**

And she turned and Lewis had a gun to her head.

_Oh god, oh god, oh god… _Before she knows it, she's going back into that place.

"_**Oliva, Olivia**__. __**You with me?**_**" **Barba's voice snaps her out of her daze.

"**Yes, sorry.**" She tells him apologetically, ashamed over her lapse of control. _And it's just the first question. Not good, Olivia._

"Where was I?"

He's patient with her, "You were going to tell the jury about the night Lewis broke into your apartment."

"**I**_** stepped into my kitchen. I sensed a presence. I went to reach for my gun but… I froze.**_**" **Her voice cracks.

Barba's heart breaks for her but he keeps his distance, maintains his dispassionate attitude. He knows that to show her too much compassion would shake her composure.

He wants to leave her some dignity.

"_**Leave that detail out. Don't imply that anything was your fault**__." _

She nods. She should know that.

And hurries to rephrase.

"_**Right. Sorry**__. __**Before I could reach for my weapon, the defendant, William Lewis, pulled a gun to my head."**_

She's embarrassed and apologetic - even though they both know she has nothing to apologize for.

Her voice is shaking slightly and she's mortified. She's told this before. But it's Barba, who she considers a friend, and this is different than making the report to people who don't know her. It's somehow worse when she has to tell this to a friend, to someone whom she respects, even though they don't always agree.

Rafael pauses, clearly seeing her discomfort. "_**You need a break**_?" He can see how hard this is for her, how valiantly she's trying to keep it together. But he needs her story to be airtight. There can be no missteps here. Not like the first time.

"_**How close is the trial?**_**" **And there's the fear again. There's a lump in her throat now and suddenly she can't breathe.

"_**Lewis has one pre-trial motion left**_." He doesn't lie to her and she's grateful.

"_**What is there left to argue about**__?_" She's impatient, frustrated and angry,convinced this is all part of Lewis's mind games. Convinced that, once again, he is trying to control the outcome. Trying to escape, once again.

And it probably is. It's Lewis, after all, and mind games are his specialty.

_Dammit, he does not get to do this._

"_**Jurisdiction. His attorney wants three separate trials. One for your kidnapping. One for the rape of Mrs. Mayer and the murder of her husband and one for the murder of the Suffolk County police officer**__."_

Liv eyes Barba closely. "_**Mrs Mayer still wants to testify?**_**"**

He nods with admiration. "_**She's tough. She wants him to die in prison**_."

She's pleased, he can tell. But he has one more thing to tell her. Something that won't make her as happy. "_**You should know that I am going for attempted murder and attempted rape."**_

_No. _"_**He did not rape me.**_" She's not sure if Barba understands but she needs to make him understand. Lewis has already taken so much from he; he does not get to claim _this_.

Barba gets it. "_**I understand that this is important to you. But**_**," **and he has to visibly work to keep the anger out of his voice, "_**he's going to claim those four days were consensual**__._"

Her face goes blank, as if she doesn't want to understand. But she _does_ understand. And he knows she does.

But he still needs to make the point.

"_**The torture, the degradation that he put you through**__…" _his eyes meet hers and she sees how much he cares and how angry he is that she had to go through this in the first place "**…**_**the jury needs to hear all of it**__." _

Benson's seen Barba many times in court. He's ruthless to those he thinks are lying. He verbally eviscerates his opponents in the courtroom. He's a formidable enemy.

But the haunted look in his eyes _for her_ almost is her undoing. He's compassionate without being pitying, sympathetic without coddling.

She feels _safe _with him.

So she starts speaking.

She speaks about how Lewis had tied her up and, while unconscious, had used keys and wires to mark her skin. There were scars now, scars that would never fully heal - he had marked her so deeply.

As if to remind her who really was in charge.

Who was in control and who was _not_.

She keeps her voice cool and dispassionate as she tells Barba how Lewis had grabbed at her breasts and put his fingers on her enflamed and raw burns. He'd splashed alcohol over them to maximize the pain and smiled as she had whimpered.

By pretending this had happened to someone else, Liv manages to get through her account of the events at her apartment.

"I offered to let him go. To pretend that this had been a terrible accident.**" **

But he would have none of it.

"_**Still bargaining with me? I thought we were past that**_**."**

_**PART TWO **_

Olivia's mind goes back to that night, to her apartment. And she tries to speak past the torrent of memories that threaten to choke her.

_Her eyes were firml_y _fixed on Lewis, not giving an inch despite the pain and fear that were choking her body. He was not going to break her. _

_She would rather die first._

"_**I'm an NYPD detective. My partner, my squad, the entire department will hunt you down. You think that you've put people through hell? It will rain back down on you."**_

"_**You know what?"**__Lewis' eyes went cold and black_.** "**_**Let it rain**_**." **_And then there was nothing but darkness. A darkness that, given the days that followed, Olivia had given anything to stay in. At least there she was beyond the hurt, beyond the sneers, the mockery, the torture. Beyond the imaginings of a fate worse than she could have ever foreseen._

She had prayed for the darkness. Counted those moments of unconsciousness a mercy.

_He had dragged her into Vanessa Mayer's parents' home in Bellport. He had made her watch while he had violently tortured and raped Mayer's mother and murdered her father. She would never forget the screaming. Never forget Lewis holding a gun to Liz Mayer's head as he raped her repeatedly. Forcing Benson to keep her eyes open, grinding a cigarette against Mayer's skin each time Olivia tried to spare the woman some dignity by closing her eyes. Lewis had spent hours with the attorney's mother, coldly disposing of the father, and finally she had watched in horror as Lewis had hung the half-naked woman in the closet, blood coming out of her nose, ears, vaginal liquids mixed with blood all over her legs, hands tied, burns all over her breasts and torso, dignity totally gone._

_Olivia remembered praying that Liz Mayer had survived as, once again, she passed out from pain and shock._

Darkness is beautiful when it yields sweet relief.

But the relief was short-lived.

_**"You don't get to say no anymore**__…."_

_When she had awoken in the car, on the floor, hands and legs tied, Lewis had started up once more with the games._

"_**That lady…I told her the things that I was going to do to her. And then I did them. Didn't I? DIDN'T I?"**_

_He forces the vodka down her throat, over her mouth as he shoves her into a sitting position. As the vodka hits her dry, cracked, bleeding mouth, Olivia whimpers. He laughs and keeps forcing it into her mouth, each whimper exciting him and spurring him on. He gives her a brief sip of water (but not too much, just enough to wet her appetite for more) yanking it away from her mouth. He pours it out, laughing at her pain, laughing at her humiliation. He keeps taunting her, rubbing her body against his. Promising her how much fun they were going to have and that this was just the beginning._

_Shoving his body against her, he forces his mouth against hers despite the duct tape. Reaches down and touches her. _

_She freezes._

_Don't move, don't move, don't move… don't think, don't think, don't think…._

_The vodka still burns in her stomach and her throat. She'll never be able to drink it again._

_**"Suck it down. Swallow."**_

**Every morning, every evening  
>Ain't we got fun?<br>Not much money, oh, but honey  
>Ain't we got fun?<strong>

_She could feel her resistance lowering as the alcohol overwhelms her system. She begins to float, because isn't that nice, and listens detachedly to Lewis's conversation with the young police officer who pulls them over. The exchange is a blur until the officer starts to get curious about what's actually in the car. _Oh God, _Benson thinks_, don't be curious. Don't ask, don't ask. Go away. GO AWAY.

She stared blankly at the courtroom wall in front of her. Not seeing the wood paneling, not seeing Barba standing to the side. Everything had faded away and once again she was lying on the floor of the car, hearing the sound of the gunshots.

_That poor officer…_

She still tastes the vodka in her mouth.

And fade to orange and black.

_Lewis throws her on the bed, her hands still cuffed behind her back. _

"Olivia? Olivia? _LIV_." A soft voice snaps her out of her trance.

Rafael's standing right there, his eyes soft with the concern she had seen before. There's no trace of the shark there. She thinks dispassionately how foreign it is to see him displaying emotions.

While she's witnessed his vulnerability a few times, she's still unaccustomed to it.

He's always been an enigma to her - to most of the squad, really - charming without opening up, open without revealing, friendly without the intimacy of friendship.

It was only that night in the office, when it was just the two of them, alone, in the near dark, that she had seen the _Rafi _behind the _Rafael. _The man behind the prosecutor. The tough, scrappy, vulnerable Cuban New Yorker behind the Harvard-educated, witty, closed-off facade

A man who has loved.

Who has had his heart broken.

So very human after all.

_**PART THREE**_

"I'm sorry." She says apologetically. "I didn't get much sleep last night." Her fingers tap against the witness stand.

He smiles understandingly. "Currently on my sixth cup of coffee."

She smiles. "You really need a IV drip the way you go through that."

He shrugs, a slight grin on his face. "I have my assistant working on it."

Without missing a beat, he gets back to the point.

"What happened in the bathroom?" He doesn't allow her to linger too long in the hypnotic gaze of memories.

She can appreciate his directness, his rapid fire questioning. It gets her moving, gets her thinking again.

Time to cauterize this wound.

"He dragged me into the bathroom to "help" me use the facilities." She began to speak, her voice a harsh whisper, cutting through the silence in the courtroom.

_He had watched her. The entire time. She couldn't really go too much because how could she when he was watching, watching, watching…grinning, leering. The amount of urine she produced was pathetic and oh god how it hurt and burned. She wanted to die. Those calculating eyes on her half-naked body, determined to eradicate every last scrap of dignity she had. _

"_You're done? Good. Time for some fun before I get rid of that car."_

_He came towards her, put his hands on her bare stomach, hands brushing her legs as he pulled her pants up. Touching, grazing, his lips along her neck. Hands reaching around as if to zip up her pants…but his fingers didn't stop there….he took her hand, placed it on his cock. He smelled like blood and death and cigarettes. Her stomach heaved as she struggled to get away. _

"_Hey now, none of that." He brought the gun against her neck, brought it against her chest, against her groin. "Can't you stand a real man?" _

Bile rises in her stomach. She raises a shaky hand and gets up from the witness stand.

"Excuse me." She says shakily.

Barba nods silently, wanting to help but respecting her need for privacy.

Olivia flees to the nearest women's restroom, collapses besides the toilet and vomits. She hadn't eaten much that morning, she had been too nervous. She _had _had lots of coffee. Which she was now regretting.

She throws up once, twice, three times. Takes several deep breaths. Blinks back the tears in her eyes.

Scrambles to her feet and looks at herself in the mirror. The concealer had worn off; she hadn't brought any more with her, and the dark circles stood out prominently on her face. No amount of blush could cloak how white her face was.

Quickly, she washes her hands, quickly swirls some water in her mouth to take away the acid taste of the bile from her stomach.

_**One move, lights out**__._

And walks back into the courtroom, a little slowly, her strength sapped.

_**PART FOUR**_

Barba's been pacing there and now leaning against the judge's bench. He doesn't see her come in. His brow is furrowed, eyes staring at some undefined spot. She stands and watches him a while, not wanting to intrude, gathering her own strength again.

Repairing the somewhat frayed edges of her dignity.

She sees him rub his face with both his hands, his hair, normally gelled and perfectly coifed, now rumpled.

He's visibly shaken and trying to hide it. It's strange for her to see him this way because he's usually the strong, unflappable one.

This is hell on her but she hasn't thought about how this has been on him. She's been so busy trying not to hate him for being outwitted by Lewis. She's been thinking that he hasn't the right to feel badly at all, not in comparison with her.

The phantom Lindstrom in her mind tells her that isn't fair. (_Oh, this is great, he'd probably have a field day if he knew she was hearing his voice in her head. _But she found it comforting. A tether, as it were, to her sanity.)

But it was under Barba's watch that Lewis walked. Forget the fact that the lab techs had fucked up the evidence testing. He had to watch as Lewis walked out of his courtroom, smirking at him. At Benson. Rubbing it in that _he had won _and they had lost.

And then she was abducted. By the man he had let walk.

Phantom Lindstrom asks: _is assigning fault really helpful at this moment?_.

She knows he's right - damn his eyes - and takes a step back, trying to really _see _Barba. To regain some perspective.

Has Barba been blaming himself this entire time?

She remembers, with some regret, her words to Lindstrom, "_**I feel very angry…if I hadn't let my guard down, if somebody had put him away, he wouldn't have been able to rape Alice Parker, Mrs. Mayer…**_"

Phantom Lindstrom: _Anger is natural, Olivia. So is laying blame. But ask yourself, "Is this helpful?" Try something different._

So she decides to be gentle.

"Rafael." She says, getting closer to him.

"Liv." He turns, quickly throwing up his mask of invulnerability.

No, she's not the only one who doesn't want to seem weak.

Because those who hate you - _and_ those who love you - can exploit the chinks in your armor.

Show no weakness. It was the first lesson they'd both been taught.

"You good?" He asks, scanning her face.

"I could be better." She decides to be honest. Both of them can see into one another. They know each other now.

The courtroom is quiet, no one's around. You can hear a pin drop.

Phantom Lindstrom: _He needs to know, Olivia, that it isn't his fault. He did his job. I know you may feel that it is his fault but we both know that feeling isn't fact, don't we? _

"Rafael." She tells him. "It wasn't your fault. You know that, right? I don't blame you."

Just saying the words helps her. But she's not sure how to read him; his eyes are completely shuttered.

"Yes, well," Barba shuffles his papers, "be that as it may, we need to finish this. Do you feel well enough to proceed?"

Benson knows a deflection better than anyone. _Okay, we're going to play that game._

Phantom Lindstrom: _He's not ready, Olivia. Give him time. _

"Okay, counselor." She says brusquely. "Proceed."

She starts to talk about the time in the cottage. States her story just as she told it to the people who took her report.

Rafael looks at her, knowing that there's more to it than she's saying. The injuries Lewis sustained seemed inconsistent with her insistence that she "did what she had to do" to subdue him.

She had a gun.

Why didn't she use it?

Why didn't she just shoot him in the kneecap and immobilize him that way?

Instead, Lewis had a collapsed lung, shattered knee cap, fractured skull and a broken orbital socket. He's seen pictures of him. He'd been beaten to a bloody pulp, not simply subdued.

He knows she's hiding more than she's telling.

_What was she leaving out?_

He doesn't push her. He'll let her have her secrets.

For now.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: _Characters belong to Dick Wolf and NBC; as do the events of Psycho/Therapist, October Surprise, and all referenced episodes. Any changes to the televised episodes are mine. Some dialogue taken from the actual episodes._

"_**I'm going to be right here, okay? In your corner.**__"_ ~ Rafael Barba, Military Justice

Chapter 8

_See the wings unfolding that weren't there just before_

_On a ray of sunshine she dances out the door_

_Out into the morning light where the sky is all ablaze_

_This looks like the first of better days. _

_-_Guy Clark, **Better Days**

They've been at this now for two hours and Barba sees that Benson's exhausted. When she didn't think he could see, she surreptitiously sneaks a yawn behind her hand. The circles under her eyes seemed to be growing darker by the minute.

He knew that was ridiculous. He was on his…well, he's lost track of how much coffee he's consumed and he hasn't been sleeping, so maybe he's just seeing things. But she's reached the end of her rope and he can't push her any further. Not now.

He regrets having shut her down before. He had seen the brief flash of hurt in her eyes before she had pulled herself together. But it's too hard for him to accept her forgiveness when he can't forgive himself.

"Olivia, I think we need to call it a day." He says gently, as if trying to make up for his terseness earlier.

She smiles tiredly, emotionally exhausted. She's not sure how she's going to make it through the day but she's tough. She'd try. "I would appreciate the breather." She jokes mildly.

Barba nods. "We can pick this up later. Are you going to be all-right?"

She gets up from the witness stand and sways slightly, her hand gripping the wood so tight, she can feel the splinters digging into the palms of her hands, which is good because that means she can still feel. And feeling is good, right?

She sees blood.

Again.

_So much blood._

Barba comes over and places a hand on her arm. "Liv." He says and looks at her face, sees that she's about to drop. But she won't admit that because she's strong and she's fearless and she hates to be weak. Just like him. They're so much alike, the two of them.

That's a double-edged sword that Barba fears to handle.

"Let me call you a cab." He suggests.

She protests.

"It's okay, Barba." _So we're back to that, are we? _He definitely had some bridges to mend.

He looks skeptically at her, not believing for one moment that she's okay.

"You look ready to drop, Olivia."

"I'll be fine." She smiles tightly. "Just need some food, some coffee, and a few hours of work and I'll be ready to go."

He raises an eyebrow. "You're going into work? Really?"

"Barba." She interrupts him, not wanting to hear a lecture on maybe it wasn't such a good idea to go into work - even though earlier she wasn't sure if she could work at all. "You know me. I'm always fine."

_That's bullshit_, he wants to tell her and she knows it. Both of them have now learned to read each other, gauging each other's body language, spotting their weaknesses. Somedays one would have thought they were gearing up to spar in the boxing ring.

"At least do something with those hands." He said, putting one of his hands on hers, turning them over. She's never noticed how soft his hands were, but not soft in a weak way. She can't put her finger on it. But they're comforting.

Her palms are spotted with tiny drops of blood from the wooden splinters. They're smaller versions of the bloodstains that were on her carpeting, she notices. Tries not to flinch.

"Thank you, Mother Teresa." Benson quickly removes her hands from his and smiles, a little strained. She's not comfortable with his touch, it's too pleasant, too safe, too…_something _for her and she's not sure how to feel about that. He looks a little surprised himself and perhaps, too, there's some strain on his face.

But his lips quirk in a semi-smile, as if laughing at his own joke. _Ah, Olivia, you're so much like me. And yet so different._

He sees her stiffen slightly and becomes more serious, lest she think that he was laughing at her.

But she doesn't think that, she's just not used to this solicitude from him.

"Just do me a favor, Liv?"

"It depends on what it is." Her smile's a little more relaxed now.

"Let me check on you later." He's never been more serious.

"Counselor, I don't need a babysitter." Her voice is sharp, despite her exhaustion, her defenses are up. "As it is, it's as if I have a squad of babysitters right now."

He's exasperated now. "Olivia, as your counselor and as your friend, I just want to make sure you're all-right."

_My god, she can be prickly._

_But I can't really blame her. All the sympathy and coddling must be exhausting._

Olivia starts to snap back but restrains herself and really looks at him. And relaxes. She can see now what he's doing. He genuinely cares and isn't wanting to smother. She can handle that.

As she turns to walk out the door, she smiles slightly and says, "I'll be walking home around 7:00."

_You can walk with me if you wish_.

The unspoken invitation lingers in the air.

And, for the first time that day, there's a genuine smile on Rafael Barba's face.

**INTERLUDE - **_**AINT WE GOT FUN**_

Benson can't help the small smile cross her face as she heads towards the elevator and towards a long day at work. She's not too upset at Barba for shutting her out earlier because, really, she's done that so many times before. To Fin, to Amaro, to Brian. _Oh, god, Brian…he's going to have to deal with all of this being splashed out in public. _

While they weren't together anymore, she still loves him and hates the idea of him seeing her remotely weak or vulnerable. Or having to deal with questions about her. _What was it like being with the badass of the sixteenth? _Or maybe they were calling her the _former _badass given that she hadn't even been able to defend herself.

She gets to the elevator, sunk in morose thoughts, ignoring Phantom Lindstrom telling her to _quit thinking so negatively, Olivia._

There are more people now, lots in the elevator. It's crowded and she can smell some Chanel No. 5, some spicy cologne, the smell of sweat, and fear, and first day jitters. It's almost too much for her to bear at the moment.

And then _he _steps in.

_Lewis_.

A large scar around his right eye. He looks up and sees her. Smirks and grins, leering.

_**Ev'ry morning, ev'ry evening**_

_**Ain't we got fun?**_

_**Not much money, Oh, but honey**_

_**Ain't we got fun?**_

She hears that song playing over and over in her head. And Lewis keeps smirking at her, noting her discomfiture. He can slide underneath her skin _so _easily, with just a simple smile and a catchy tune.

She freezes. Can't speak. Can't move. Can't blink.

_Breathe in._

_Breathe out._

Somehow she manages to break out of her trance and discovers that "Lewis"is not Lewis at all but a (probably) harmless, inoffensive businessman or lawyer - she can't tell which - who looks nothing like Lewis really…except for the height and build.

For a moment, she closes her eyes.

_It was going to be a long day_.

**LATER THAT NIGHT**

It's 7:00 and Benson's more than ready to go home. She throws on her trench coat, keeps her gun close to her side. Even though it didn't help her against Lewis, she's still reluctant to walk anywhere without it somewhere on her body. It's the illusion of safety that she wraps close to her chest.

She walks out of the squad, after a brief exchange with Cragen, who is obviously concerned about her but respecting her enough not to coddle her too much. She can't expect NO coddling, that just would be unnatural. But she's made it clear that she doesn't want to be treated like porcelain. She's got an uphill battle ahead of her and she knows it. And the last thing she needs is to be treated as if she's weak.

The sky is clear tonight and beyond the dim lights of the street lights, she can see the stars. It's been a long time since she's taken the time to simply look up and appreciate them. But now she does. She stands there, looking for the north star, the constant fixture in the heavens.

Like her job.

Her job is her north star, her fixed mark. The one constant in her life.

Lindstrom had questioned whether it was wise for her to return to the precinct so soon after her trauma with Lewis but she was insistent. _**He does not get to take this from me, **_she had told him. Whatever pieces of her life she could keep from Lewis, she would.

She closes her eyes, feels the chill of the evening wind on her face. Smells the hint of winter in the air. It's just mid-autumn but there's a chilly edge to the autumn air that hasn't been there before. And she's now starting to get cold.

So she walks.

And there's a section of the city that's not well lit and it's not terribly far from her apartment but still far enough. Benson quickens her pace and all of a sudden she can hear footsteps behind her. And it occurs to her that they may have been following her awhile but she was so deep in thought that she hadn't really paid much attention.

She freezes, instantly thinking about Lewis. But that's ridiculous. He can't be out? Can he?

The night is cold but sweat drips down her collar and she puts her hand on her service revolver and whirls around pointing it at…. _Barba_?

To his credit, he doesn't flinch.

Life was tough in _el barrio _and he's seen much worse than a gun. To be fair, though, he usually wasn't on the receiving end of the action.

No, he'd been too smart for that. Always could talk himself out of trouble.

He sees the look in her eyes, the same look in the eyes of a startled and trapped animal. She's looking for a place to run, she's afraid. And it's like she's in a completely different place and time.

"Liv." He reaches out to her, like he would with a startled animal. He's gentle and soft and he gets close to her. Somehow she knows not to actually use the gun, she vaguely knows he's not a threat, but she's still not completely out of her daze. Why can't she move? She's frozen, feet can't move, her hand is shaking.

Barba puts his hand on hers, takes the gun from her. Puts it inside his trench coat in one of the many goddamned large pockets it had. It'd be safe there for the moment.

She's trembling and he puts a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Let's get you home, Olivia."

Benson doesn't make a protest, that's his confirmation that she's really not fine. That it's all been a facade. Oh, he's suspected that but now he knows. He also knows that she may resent him later for seeing her like this.

But that's fine. Right now she needs him.

Whether she realizes it or not.

So he calls her a cab. "Rafael," she protests faintly, "my apartment's not that far. It's a waste…" Her protests are half-hearted at best, she's so tired. So tired of being strong, of keeping up the mask.

It's hard to always be pretending.

"Olivia." He tells her firmly. "I'm going to make sure you get home. You can scold me later."

Liv doesn't admit it to him but it's a relief to have someone else making the decisions for a change. She's just so tired of deciding everything... So she gets in and he does too. He gives the cabbie directions, speaks to him in a low voice.

She's worn out and leans against the worn and ripped leather cab seat, closing her eyes. Barba's next to her and she (later she'll claim she was exhausted and done in but now she's at peace) leans her head on his shoulder.

He puts his arm around her and looks out the window. Looks at the stars because he can see them faintly even against the city skyline.

Even though the cab light is dim, he sees that the lines have smoothed on her face as she lightly dozes off. And as he tightens his arm around her, he smiles for no reason at all.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: **Characters are not mine. Neither are the events of Psycho/Therapist, Surrender Benson, etc. Additions are mine.

Chapter 9

**BENSON'S APARTMENT - EARLIER THAT DAY**

Benson wakes up, slightly startled.

The sun's shining brightly through her windows. Such a weird feeling being woken up by sunlight – she's been so used to the night terrors. It's definitely not three am… there's no mistaking that particular shade of night especially when you've been waking up around that time for the last week or two due to particularly grisly nightmares.

And it's definitely not five, the time she'd normally get up for work. It's way too bright for that.

She turns over and looks at the clock. Scrambling out of bed, her coffee-deprived brain barely registers that it's seven o'clock. All she could think of was oh god, she's late for work and Cragen's going to kill her.

But she does feel better than she did yesterday. Better than she has in a very long time.

She feels rested. Comforted. _Safe_.

For once, she had made it through the night with no nightmares or flashbacks. She had had a good night's sleep. How was that even possible? It shouldn't have been possible…every other night had been a series of sporadic naps interrupted with flashbacks.

Then she remembers the cab ride. Remembers Barba. Remembers pulling a gun on him. _Oh my God. She had pulled a gun on the ADA. Oh my God, what the fuck had she done?! _They are slowly becoming friends but their friendship is still so new and fragile, perhaps a slight breeze was enough to shake it. To say nothing of a **gun**.

She jumps out of bed, realizing that she hadn't even undressed; she's still in her work clothes. _And_ that she smells like NYC taxi cab and some type of exotic cologne. Weird combination of smells but somehow it works.

_What the hell?_

She quickly pats herself, searching frantically for her service revolver. _How could she have been so careless? _It wasn't like her to let her guard down like that and, oh God, what a fucking stupid thing to do with everything going on. _Benson, you fucked up_, she chastised herself, running her hands through her tangled hair. _You know better._

Glancing over at her kitchen, she sees the gun lying there, on top of a piece of paper. Heaving a sigh of relief, she goes over, looks at the paper and recognizes Barba's distinctive handwriting. He doesn't waste words.

"Liv," she reads, "hope you had a good night. Rest up. We've got a long battle ahead."

_God, Barba, _she thinks bemusedly, _your bedside manner really needs a bit of work. _

But then she remembers other moments from the evening, they trickle into her mind like drops of flowing from a small crack in a dam.

Remembers him gently touching her arm, taking the gun out of her hand, disarming her. In more ways than one.

There are many ways to break down walls. In war, sometimes frontal attacks work but not too often. And it usually involves a lot of artillery and collateral damage. Benson's found that the more effective way is through gentleness. Through kindness.

She vaguely remembers him calling for a cab, holding her tight as she still shakes from the fear and the terror…thinking that Lewis had found her once again. That he's still waiting for her in the shadows and the secret corners of alley ways.

And she couldn't think…._couldn't think…couldn't think…_All she could do was shake and bury her head in his trench coat, trying to tamp down the panic attack that had been shaking her body. When the fear is all-encompassing, it's nearly impossible to find rationality. The fog is thick and conceals icebergs in the inky blackness of the ocean. In those moments, Benson can't see where she's going.

Can't make out the port of safety.

So Barba had wrapped his arms around her. And he had held her. Didn't say one word. Just let his comforting embrace speak all the words he wanted to say but couldn't say.

He didn't try to say things would be okay. Because both of them knew that could be a lie. And she's had enough lies. Enough false promises. Lewis has walked before and he could walk again. She doesn't want Barba to tell her that he'll get him for good; she just needs to know he'll fight for her.

She needs that port that stands steady in the thick of the storm. And so he just keeps holding her.

And she remembers his arm around her in the cab….she still smells his uniquely expensive cologne, not too strong, but not soft either…smelling of smoke and palm trees, sunshine and starry nights. The smell that still lingers on her clothes along with the smoke from the cab.

_God, cigarette smoke…._her stomach rolls and she shoves that memory down. Hard. It's not welcome here.

While the evening had been somewhat of a blur, she remembers dozing off in the cab and his arm tightening around her. And perhaps this had been a dream but she felt the brush of something along her hair, whether it was his fingers or his lips…she didn't know. Couldn't tell. Had been so tired. Hadn't cared.

Her exhaustion had been bone deep.

Stumbling up to her apartment, Rafael's arm around her waist, she had tried to unlock her door but she couldn't do much but fumble at the lock. Barba had chuckled a little at her colorful expletives trying to get the key in the door but he had ended up unlocking her door for her, brushing away her apologies for the mess, guiding her into the apartment.

Everything had been secure, he'd made sure of that. Checking the closets, the back room. And for a few moments, he had once again taken her into his arms. She was taller than he was but she didn't care; he had tucked her body into his as if he was the taller one.

Maybe he was.

He had stroked her hair, whispering some random words in Spanish that she couldn't quite catch but they were soothing. Then, with a soft "goodnight, Olivia", he had gently squeezed her arm and disappeared through the doorway, as quiet and silent as the phantoms that lurked in the corners of her mind.

The phantoms that, for the first time, had not been in her dreams.

And Olivia Benson smiled.

**AT THE UNIT - THE NEXT DAY**

The tension's palpable around the squad. They've seen the publicity, they've been nagged for interviews by persistently annoying reporters, and all of them can see the stress hovering around Benson's shoulders. In the months since her ordeal, she'd been getting better but with the upcoming trial, it's been clear that she hasn't quite been herself.

Barba comes in early one morning and pulls them all into a conference room - Cragen, Amaro, Fin, and Rollins. He wants to make sure all of them understand exactly what's at stake and what they can and cannot do. When he strides into the squad room, they all look at him and he can see the tension on their faces. Can sense the deep burning anger in all of them.

They know what he's here for.

All of them are too professional to lose their composure. But they're upset and Barba feels it as soon as they gather in that room. He's got to defuse the thundercloud of boiling emotions or tamp it down somehow or this will be over before it starts. _Don't make my job harder, people._

Cragen begins, _**"These next few weeks are going to be stressful on Olivia and us. Let's not make this harder than it needs to be." **_

"Lewis has some stones putting her through this." Amaro says, crumpling paper and throwing it into the garbage. _That sick fucking bastard_, he thinks, _I wish I had five minutes with him_. He looks out the window, trying to rein in his emotions. But everyone sees them on his face. And they all feel the exact same way.

Rollins looks at Barba's face and she must have seen a flash of the concern that he's been feeling; she's may be young but she's perceptive. Beneath that youthful face is a very sharp mind. He's underestimated her. That's been his Achilles heel of late, apparently - underestimating his opponents…and his allies.

"_**You can't really think that he'll get away with this again, do you?" **_

He's not going to lie to her; Rollins would spot it and she'd resent him for it. Lewis is a formidable opponent. But there may be a weakness. Even the strongest of opponents have a flaw. He knows that more than anyone. "_**He's five for five. Breeds hubris." **_

Tutuola's clearly disgusted by all of this. By the fact that Lewis was even alive to stand trial. Barba knows what he was thinking even before he said it.

"_**We should've shot him when we got there."**_Fin fucking hates Lewis.

Barba understands. Oh, God, does he _understand_. And that's been part of his problem for the past few months: he's been torn between following the law and following the primal instincts he's buried deep down inside ever since leaving the _barrio_. It'd be a fucking pleasure to beat the shit out of William Lewis. But he _cannot, CANNOT_, give in to what he really wants to do. And he so can't let the others hurt his case.

He's Olivia's best chance to get Lewis behind bars for the rest of his life.

So he makes firm eye contact with Fin. "**Do **_**not**_**, and I repeat, do **_**not, **_**say that on the stand. **_**I'll be calling each of you and part of his defense will be saying that the NYPD has a vendetta against him so tamp down your emotions." **_He made eye contact with every single one of them, even Cragen. And Cragen understands. He doesn't need the reminder - but he accepts Barba's admonition with good grace. "_**Don't talk to the press. Don't take the bait**__."_

_Don't fuck this up._

He walks out, less worried about Tutuola than he is about Amaro. Tutuola's been around long enough to know when to keep his mouth shut. Amaro still hasn't quite learned that lesson. That hothead.

Barba realizes that he's not quite objective when it comes to the detective. He's never really cared for him, ever since the events surrounding the breaking of his friendship with Alejandro.

Yes, it's Alejandro now… never Alex.

Never again.

Both Amaro's machismo and arrogance he finds irritating. And he fucking resented Amaro's psychoanalysis. What gave that hothead the fucking right to judge _him_?

"_**You're out of line, detective**_**."** Yes, they will never be friends.

But Benson likes him and he's been her partner, so he'll keep a rein on his antagonism.

Barba glances at his watch; it's time for the motions hearing and the clouds are gathering on the horizon.

Another storm's on the way.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: Characters are not mine, blah, blah, blah. Any revisions to the Psycho/Therapist plotlines are mine; the episode belongs to NBC, Dick Wolf, the writers. Actual show dialogue is in bold italics. **

Author's Note: This chapter is small because the next ones are going to be rather large. This is just an appetizer; the main courses are coming.

**MOTIONS HEARING** - **SUPREME COURT**

Olivia's there before he is this morning. He hasn't seen her since her panic attack when he had taken her home. She gives him a slight smile, and despite the tension of the situation, he smiles back. It's good to see her smile. That's been happening far too rarely with her. And he likes her smile.

Lights up her whole face.

Maybe when this was all over… he stops before his mind even goes in that direction. He had no business going to that place. Not now. He can't afford distractions. Not now. Not with so much at stake.

He doesn't particularly care for Lewis' defense attorney. Upon reflection, though, if he's honest with himself, he'd despise anyone else who represented that pathetic excuse for a human being. He fiddling with his suit and papers, trying to focus his thoughts elsewhere. _Don't let them see you sweat, Rafi - _he could hear his tough Cuban mother's voice echo in his head. _Never, ever let those gringitos see you weak. That's not how I raised you to be, hijo. _

There's no small talk this morning. While small talk isn't a usual courtroom staple, sometimes he indulges in it to ease the atmosphere a little, to get people to drop their guard. It's actually quite effective. Not this time, though. He doesn't want to waste it on Lewis or his attorney.

"_**Suffolk County's 50 miles outside this district attorney's purview. Those charges should be tried separately."**_

And she gets right down to business.

He doesn't like her but she's good. He would have done the same. But he's going to put up at least a nominal fight, even though he knows that it's likely the ruling will go against him. No judge will allow the piling on of charges so he's prepared to have the defense's motion granted. He doesn't particularly like it but that's the way of the law. Everyone gets a sporting chance. Even people who don't deserve it.

"_**The murders and rape are part of William Lewis's course of conduct in a FOUR DAY torture/kidnap rampage that began in Dt Benson's NY apartment. **__It's important that these be considered; they form a large part of what happened to the detective during that time."_

The defense attorney strenuously objects.

"_**The DA thinks that by piling on charges he can overwhelm a jury. This is beyond prejudicial, your honor." **_Rafael rolls his eyes internally but braces himself for what he knows is coming. He's been in front of this judge before – and this judge does not like cases in front of his bench going up for appeal.

"_**I've read your arguments and I agree. Combining these cases could pose an unfair burden on the defendant."**_

Lewis: 1, Prosecution: 0

Barba makes a rather half-hearted attempt to object. But he doesn't fight too hard. This is a battle he knew he was probably going to lose and sometimes you need to give up some battles in order to win the war. You win some, you lose some.

"_**Your Honor…"**_

The judge interrupts Barba, not even wanting to hear his point. He's made up his mind.

"_**And since the burden is something that could come up on appeal, I am ruling in favor of the defense's motion to separate out these charges."**_

Lewis' attorney seems grateful for the ruling. Well, she better be. That was the last thing that was going to go in their favor if Barba had anything to say about it. _**"Thank you." **_

But then the judge adds something which makes Lewis sit up at attention.

"_**But, I will allow the jury to hear evidence pertaining to what the detective herself witnessed or experienced." **_

Lewis' face loses all expression and Barba can tell he's not happy. And this pleases Barba; anything that pisses off that son of a bitch is a good thing.

He's also relieved that the judge is permitting this; it will allow Benson to talk about what she's seen and heard about the murders and the rape. So while they won't be going after Lewis on those charges, they can be dealt with in the courtroom. That will help her.

"_**EXCUSE ME?" **_Lewis speaks up rather loudly, leaning forward. "I'm sorry," he says, clearly not sorry at all, "due to my beating, I have problems with my hearing." Barba has to refrain from rolling his eyes. While Lewis is still truly in some pain from his lingering injuries, Barba guesses it's nowhere near as bad as he's making it out to be. Fucking king of courtroom theatrics.

And as far as Barba's concerned, he wouldn't lose any sleep if Lewis suffered the rest of his life. Let the fucking prick suffer. It's the least he deserved.

The judge sighs and asks Lewis' attorney, "Is this going to be an issue at trial, counselor?"

"We will have the prison hospital supplying him with a hearing device to assist at trial. It will not be a problem, your honor."

The judge still isn't happy with having to repeat himself. He's no fool and can see right through Lewis' theatrics. And he's got absolutely no patience for them, but he's got to be careful.

"I simply said that we are separating the charges out. Do you understand _that_, Mr. Lewis?"

"Yes, your honor." Lewis smirks and sits back.

"Then YOU," the judge looked sternly at Lewis, "are remanded until the trial. We're adjourned."

Barba looks back at Benson. She's looking over at Lewis. Barba turns and out of the corner of his eye he sees Lewis make eye contact with her, a small smirk flashing across his face, a hint of a sneer at the corner of his lips. He and Benson stare at each other for a minute or two. Which seems to last a lifetime. Lewis then turns and whispers in his attorney's ear, glancing over at Benson again. His attorney nods and without another look at Benson, he limps out of the room.

Rafael looks at Benson. Her face is hard and set.

"You okay?" He's concerned about her, she wasn't happy about the motion and he can tell she's repulsed to even be in the same room as William Lewis.

She looks at Barba for a few seconds. And the things he sees in her eyes break his heart. He wants to say something more to her but he's at a loss for words. He doesn't even know how to begin to say anything that can comfort her.

She can't even give him an answer so she turns and walks out of the room quickly, pulling her coat tight against her body as if to protect herself.

He wants to walk after her, talk to her, make sure she's going to be okay. But at this moment, that'd be a distraction and he can't afford that. Not now. He's got work to do.

His primary goal is to get Lewis behind bars and _nothing _can interfere with that.

_Keep it together, Olivia. You can do this. WE can do this._

He starts to put his papers together when Lewis' attorney gets his attention.

"_**Mr. Barba, there's something I'd like to discuss with you."**_

Is she going to try for a deal? No, thank you. Let Lewis rot in prison and in hell.

"_**I don't think there's anything you could POSSIBLY say that would interest me." **_He tells her dismissively.

"_**Oh, THIS will." **_And then she starts to talk and Barba's attention is immediately caught. He can't believe what he's hearing.

They end up talking for another hour and then he walks out of the courtroom, stunned.

Reaches for his cell and calls Olivia.

"Benson." He can hear the exhaustion and stress in her voice.

"Olivia, I need to see you at my office. Right away." His tone is firm, doesn't give her a chance to object.

"I'll be there as soon as I can, counselor."


	11. Chapter 11

_Shields, body armors and vests don't properly work_

_That's why you're in a locker full of hurt_

_The enemy within and all the fires from your friends_

_The best medicine's to probably just let it win. _

_- **Battle Scars, Guy Sebastian, Ft. Lupe Fiasco**_

Disclaimer: See prior chapters. You know who owns everything.

Chapter 11

_**BARBA'S OFFICE**_

"What's this all about, Barba?" The strain of preparing for this trial, the last few weeks, the news stories have clearly been weighing on her. There are coffee stains on her shirt, the grooves around her eyes have deepened, and despite her fitful sleep the night before, the circles are just as prominent under her eyes. Her hands are trembling ever so slightly.

She's not in the mood for small talk, for bullshit. There are knots in her stomach and she wants to throw up what little she put in it. She's been doing a lot of that lately. It seems that all she's been doing is having nightmares, flashbacks, and nausea. And it's so goddamned frustrating. Benson wants her life back.

What Barba tells her almost sends her into shock and she feels that familiar rage surging through her body.

"_**What? He wants to plead to RAPE?" **_She can't believe Lewis' audacity. And yet she can. Even from a prison hospital, he's still playing his fucking sick games. He'll never stop. Not until he's dead.

"_**Multiple counts of rape in the first. Multiple counts of sodomy. And he wants to plead guilty. With an allocution. To be specific." **_Barba's face is very somber, he understands just what Lewis wants her to do.

Oh, she gets it. He wants to tell everybody about things he didn't do to her just to humiliate her. To get revenge on her for what she did to him at the beach house. He wants to break her in public. In front of the world. No fucking way.

Nice fucking try, asshole.

"_**He wants to STAND up in open court and give graphic details of what he did NOT do to me?!" **_She wants to cry, to scream, to throw something against the wall of Barba's office. But it's not Barba's fault that Lewis is pulling one of his sick mind-fucks. He's not man enough to rape her physically so he wants to violate her in the courtroom.

"_**He will get 25 years to life. He will die in prison. Olivia, you will avoid a trial AND having to testify." **_Barba doesn't know what happened to her at the cottage but he wants to spare her the indignity of the trial. Wants to spare her the pain of once again going into detail about what happened to her. Wants to spare her having to tell a story that he just _knows _is not the whole truth. Rafael Barba's no one's fool; he knows she's hiding something.

He tries to convince her to take the deal, to persuade her that it's for the best. For herself. For everybody.

She's livid. He's never seen her this angry. This distraught.

"_**NO, NO, no he does not get to do that to me." **_She's almost yelling at this point. "_**He did NOT rape me. He did NOT sodomize me. You look at that rape kit after four days…he did not have the BALLS to rape me and now he wants to stand up in open court? NOW?" **_She's almost in Barba's face now, she's so upset.**"NO. NO." **Benson turns and walks to the wall. In a rare complete lapse of self-control, she hits his desk. She's got to hit something, anything. _No, Lewis does not get to do this to her. NO. _Olivia is done with the games, the mind-fucks.

"Don't you get it?" She asks him angrily. "This is just another fucking mind game for him. He didn't have the balls to rape me, he was _afraid _of me. Don't tell me he gets to stand up there and act that he had more power over me than he actually did. That's a fucking _lie._ I won't let him take more than he already has. **NO**. He can take his fucking deal and shove it up his ass."

Leaning against the wall, she puts her trembling hands over her face, trying to regain control. _Keep it together, Olivia. Keep it together. _And yet she couldn't stop the shaking. The rage. _Just breathe…. 1…2…3, 1…2…3._

Oh, Barba gets it. More than she knows. But it's his job to lock him away. The deal would have guaranteed that. Would have thrown Lewis in jail for the rest of his natural life.

But it's clear that she's not going to take the deal.

And this is a problem. He's positive there are things Olivia left out of her account. But he can't, he won't, ask her if she's lying. That's a line when crossed would be impossible to come back from. Sometimes you're better off not crossing that line. Know when to push your luck and when to back off.

Getting Lewis behind bars and away from society is the end game. He needs to be sure that Benson won't fuck this up. Oh, she'd never do it intentionally but lies and omissions have a funny way of coming back to bite you in the ass. And he does not need surprises.

This deal would have spared them both serious problems.

So he'll not go easy on her if something she's holding back comes out and sandbags him.

So he stands very close to her and his voice is as solid and hard as steel. The man from the night of the taxi cab has retreated into the shadows and the tough legal barracuda is back. And he tries to warn her as best he can, tries to tell her that he _knows _in a way that won't implicate either one of them.

There's no softness here.

"_**I have to tell you that, given the extent of his injuries, they will go after you for excessive force. He may claim he was handcuffed when you crushed his skull. You testified to a police investigator in a grand jury that Lewis lunged at you, that you used the bar to defend yourself until he was no longer a danger to you."**_

_Olivia, I know you are not telling me the whole story. I suspect that you're lying. You need to be very, very, __very __careful here. Tread carefully, my friend. Tread carefully. _He can only hope she hears and heeds the warning. This is her _last_ chance to take the "easier" way out.

Benson's no fool. She hears it loud and clear. Knows that he's pretty sure she's not telling the truth. Knows too that the choice she's making will turn this into a real uphill battle. But it's enough that he's humiliated and violated her physically. She can't take it again in court.

Benson doesn't look at Barba despite how close he's standing. She knows he can read her too well. And she can't bear for Barba to read the lies on her face.

It's a small mercy that he doesn't actually _know_ with a 100% certainty that she's lying so she can still be the only one (besides Lindstrom) to bear the burden of her lie. The burden of her perjury. She's not dragging him, not _anyone_ else, down with her.

This is her weight alone to carry; hers alone to bear.

She knows she's putting her counselor, her _friend_, in a very awkward position. If there was another choice, she'd take it.

But there isn't another choice. Not then, not now. _I'm sorry, Rafael._

Her eyes are tight and sad and hard. When she speaks, her voice is choked with the tears she wants badly to shed but she can't because she fears Lewis will see any weakness and exploit it. And if she breaks now, she'll break in front of him.

Lewis will see the ghost of the tears on her face so she pushes them back, tamps them down. There'll be time enough for tears when this is over.

_**That is what I said." **_Her voice is soft, broken.

_That is what I said. _And Benson's very careful with her words. She has to be.

It's then that Barba knows. Verbal confirmation is unnecessary.

He also understands that whatever she did or didn't do at that cottage, she was pushed to it. Everybody has a breaking point. You push and push and push some more and even the strongest trees get knocked down. Even the toughest warriors have their limits.

It can be a short walk to the edge of the cliff. And she was starved, drugged, tortured…for days.

_Just how far over the precipice did you go?_

He knows she can't confess to him but he wants her to trust him. To trust that he'll do the right thing by her. _Don't fight me, Liv. I'm trying to help you. Help yourself. Don't let there be any surprises for me._

After brief reflection, Barba decides he's just going to stay silent. He knows he could say that he knows that she's lying. But, really, all he's got are his suspicions and his hunches. And sometimes it's just better for two people to think the other doesn't know. Ignorance is bliss...and safety.

Let her pretend she doesn't know he picked up on her verbal slip.

He'll pretend that he doesn't know that she slipped.

Pretense is safer for everybody. For now. Until it becomes a problem.

So he won't push.

She's staring out the window now, not really looking at anything at all. Olivia's overwhelmed, barely hanging on and he sees that.

But he needs to get this right.

For her. For himself.

For all of them. And he needs her to understand that. So he waves the thick manila folders in her face, his tone deadly serious.

He's got no time to coddle her. The stakes are too high.

_Olivia, look at me_.

"_**Your grand jury testimony from last May. Study those transcripts." **_He's very close to her now, the friend completely gone, only the prosecutor remaining. His ass is on the line too. _And his conscience, his soul.__** "If you deviate from your statement in ANY way it will create reasonable doubt about ALL of your testimony and he will USE it as a wedge. "**_

His voice is soft but what he says is chilling. "_**He could walk again, Liv."**_

She finally turns to look at him. Their eyes meet and hold.

There's fear in her eyes. But she gets the message.

There can be no mistakes, no fumbles, no surprises here.

_He could walk again._


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

_Be my friend_

_Hold me_

_Wrap me up. - Sia, __**Breathe Me**_

Interlude

_Sometimes we just need somebody. Somebody to hold us, to tell us sweet lies when the truth fails to be a comfort. Sometimes we need to tell us that everybody gets a happy ending and that all the villains get what they deserve. That good things always happen to good people and that the beautiful ones of the world never get hurt._

_Sometimes we just need a good lie so we can sleep at night._

_So we can live with ourselves and the things that we've done._

_And when it comes down to it, what's a job really, if it means losing your humanity, losing your connection to people?_

_Do you win alone or lose together?_

End Interlude

Rafael Barba never claimed to be a philosopher. It's not in his nature. He's educated but his wisdom is practical, not theoretical. He deals with concrete realities, not abstract theories. (At least not for the most part, sometimes he's forced to speculate.) What smarts he has doesn't come from primarily books but from learning to survive the cruelty of the world, of other children. He can charm both sides of the aisle, speak out of both sides of his mouth.

It was in the barrio that he learned his greatest lessons. About life, about love, about survival.

And the things people face alone when they've got nothing but their demons to keep them company at night.

Rafael frowns, deep in thought. He was concerned about Olivia; she was looking shaky earlier. It had been disappointing to her that the motion hadn't gone their way. Barba doesn't think she was suspicious at all - she's the most rational person he knows - but he could see how this may seem like a bad omen.

Certainly not an auspicious beginning.

And it didn't help that Lewis made sure she knew that he could still get to her. No, he hadn't missed their little moment of eye contact. People didn't call Barba 'the Shark' for no reason. Lewis, like Barba, could smell blood in the water…and fear. It had been rolling off her in waves but Barba had pretended he hadn't noticed it. (He's been doing a lot of pretending.)

Lewis didn't bother pretending. He moved in for the kill.

Because he knew exactly how to get under her skin. Would Olivia be able to hold him off? He tries to fend off the faint beginning of fear and doubt creeping into his mind. _He's playing them both. Don't let him_.

He looks thoughtfully at his cell phone, scrolls through his contacts and finds her name. _Liv_. He's not really sure when he changed it. Perhaps after that evening in his office? When they had crossed from partners and colleagues to almost friends. Perhaps he should talk to her. There's nothing wrong with that, after all.

There comes a time where sometimes distractions can be salvation.

His fingers hover over the button that would connect him to her.

_I've been around this world _

_Yet I see no end _

_All shall fade to black again and again _

_This storm that's broken me _

_My only friend_

_-_**Black Label Society** - _**In This River**_

The whiskey tastes so good, so smooth sliding down her throat. Like the feel of silk against her skin, the liquid caresses and soothes. Poetic nonsense, yes, but so very true. She holds the glass and turns it around in her fingers, staring hard at the dark amber, as if trying to coax secrets out of it like she would with a suspected perp.

She lifts it to her mouth and takes another large swallow. It burns a little as it did in the beginning but the sting is less now and it gets easier and easier for her to drink more and more. At first she's been sneaking a little from the hidden flask, then a little bit more here and there to get her through the day.

But only when nobody's around. No one to see her give in. No one to see her show weakness.

_Are you sure this is a wise thing for you to do, Olivia? This isn't going to address the root of the problem._

Phantom Lindstrom is back again.

_Why can't you just leave me alone? _she asks him.

_Because I don't think you want me to do that, Olivia. Why do you think you can hear me in your head? Why do you think I am still here?_

_It's certainly not because I need you. _she says nastily.

Phantom Lindstrom is just as calm and unflappable as his real-life counterpart.

_I don't think you really want to be going down this remember your mother?_

_Leave her the fuck out of this. _Benson snaps_._

_How can I when you still carry her ghost with you in that flask?_

She puts her head in her hands, resisting the urge to smash the flask against any hard surface.

_**I can't do this.**_

_You give yourself too little credit, Olivia. It's no weakness to say you're not okay, to admit that you need help._

_It'snot okay!__S_he tells him_. I admit that I'm not okay, they take my badge, I lose my job, everything I've worked for._

_Olivia, _**try not to catastrophize**. _I'm not telling you go into your captain and spill your issues. What I am saying is that it is normal and natural not to be strong all the time. You've told survivors that yourself. What makes you feel that your case should be any different than theirs? Why can't you allow yourself to do what you tell_ _them to do?_

_Because I am supposed to be the one that can take care of myself, the one in charge, the strong one. I am not a victim._

_You are not a victim, you are a survivor. One who has been through terrible, traumatic things. You need to learn how to forgive yourself, how to be less hard on yourself. Healing has no set time, people who tell you that are lying. Don't make the mistake that you need to recover sooner than anyone else simply because of what you do for a living. You're not a superwoman, Olivia. You're a human being. Let yourself be one._

She raises the glass to her mouth because, goddammit, she's still going to have this drink even though she can feel goddamned Lindstrom still hovering there in her head, patient, non-judgmental.

_**Is this the answer?**_

She's seen what alcohol had done to her mother. Had turned her from a sweet, loving, kind woman to a virtually unrecognizable shadow of the woman Serena Benson once had been. It hadn't totally been Serena's fault; life had not been kind to her and in many ways she had been absolutely incapable of handling the trauma of her rape.

The woman she had been at the end of her life had made Benson more determined never to become her. Yet here she was, on her second glass of whiskey during the day. Here she was, sneaking sips from "work flasks." Drinking more and more. A sense of shame overwhelmed her. How could she so easily forget that youthful promise to herself, never to end up like her mother?

It's been said that the sum of a person isn't just their DNA. But it's also been said that blood will out. Is that what's happening here? Olivia wondered. Are all the sins hidden in her DNA just making their way to the forefront?

She can't push the alcohol away. It seems to be one of the only things that could help her forget.

Forget she was still broken. (Is this how her mother had felt?)

She can't judge her now.

_You're not broken, Olivia. You're healing. There's a difference._


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note: **_You may get some very quick updates because I have chapters 13-16 all written. I was on vacation for the holidays and, amazingly, had no writers block. So enjoy the speedy updates while you can, because you never know when writer's block will hit again. Or how long it will last._

_And I know portraying Barba's concern about whether Liv can handle this seems a little repetitive and over the top but let's remember that he underestimated Lewis last time, he walked, and well, we know what happened next. He's trying to cover his bases._

**Chapter 13**

_You were in a very vulnerable state. It almost seems as if you're blaming yourself._

_I know better. But he still got to me._

_Got to you?_

_Yeah. Yeah. But not the way you think._

_**-**_**Surrender Benson**

Her phone rings. The sound shatters the air, as startling as a gunshot. She flinches. How long has she been like this? Hiding in the shadows with a flask in her hand?

She's so raw. Just as it was in the beginning, last May. Months ago. Her soul is scraped thin and the cuts are reopening. And the scars burn. All the time. They never stop burning.

Maybe when this is all over, she'll have some peace. But deep down she has this feeling that she'll only have peace when either she or Lewis is gone from this plane of existence. And it's not going to be her. She won't let it be her.

But life behind bars is a good start for him.

People don't always do well in prison…

Her phone rings again and she glances over. It's Barba. And she's not sure she wants to talk to him.

Because he knows. He knows too much.

Oh, Olivia knows her squad isn't stupid. They all suspect that something more happened there. But none of them were going to ask. None of them really want to know just how far she fell off that cliff.

Against her first inclination, she picks up the phone: "Benson."

"Olivia."

"What are you doing, Barba?"

"This trial...it's going to be a dog of a fight." She hears the unspoken _and I'm checking to see if you can handle it. _

_Why the hell is he saying this as if she doesn't know? Of ALL people, she knows how high the stakes are._

She wish he'd fucking stop reminding her.

"I can handle it." She knows that's what he wants to know.

"Can you?"

A surge of anger goes through her and she wants to slap his face. Sometimes he can be such a fucking prick. But that burst of anger is as brief as it is violent and she knows he's just doing his job. Covering himself.

"You know I can. Don't insult me by asking that."

He's quiet – he can hear the hurt in her voice and he's not quite sure what to say.

Her sigh is audible over the phone.

"Why are you really calling, Rafael?"

"I'd like to see you. Tonight, if possible."

Liv's exhausted and she doesn't want to give Lewis, this trial, another thought. "I can't."

"I'm not going to interrogate you, Liv." He assures her.

_She wants to see him but she's too afraid. She's afraid that she'll break this fragile…thing…friendship...whatever it is…between them. Her life is littered with casualties of her life, of her job; she doesn't want Barba to be another one of them._

_**I can't get things right. I'm all over the place**_.

"Okay, my apartment in an hour?"

_Now where the hell had that come from? _But she knows the answer before the question even fades from her head. It's been a struggle since Brian left. The apartment is all memories of both of them and with his absence, the emptiness is larger, _emptier_ if that was even possible.

She hadn't really realized how integral he had been to her life until he had gone. And no one wants to be alone with ghosts and shadows. They make for cold companions at night.

And loneliness is the coldest of them all.

**One Hour Later**

She's opened a new bottle of scotch - the "expert" down at the local liquor corner told her it was good and wine simply hasn't been getting the job done. After sampling some of Barba's, she can see why people favor it. Scotch burns in such a pleasant way. Wine's almost too smooth. Too soothing. She needs that jolt. That reminder that she can still _feel_.

Wiping her hands on her pants, Liv looks around the apartment.

_What exactly is she doing_? She's not too sure. Friendship with men…. yes, she has them but mostly in the comfortable confines of work. Anything beyond that seems to not go well. Panicking slightly, she debates with herself whether or not to just call him and tell him she's not feeling well.

_**Why are you afraid of doing something different,Olivia? **__Different isn't necessarily a negative thing._

_He's my fucking attorney, that's why. Isn't that a conflict of interest?_

_Olivia, from what I understand, this sounds like just friends spending time with each other. And how is that a bad thing for you? Are you afraid that if this turns into something real, that he'll go away just like the others have? You can't live your life like that, Olivia, and I think you know that._

She couldn't answer the Lindstrom in her head.

For a voice in her head, he could be pretty astute. But then again, the real Lindstrom would probably tell her that it wasn't really him she heard but the core of herself, the real Benson. The badass that defeated Lewis then and the one who was going to defeat him again.

A sharp knock interrupted her thoughts. _Too late to back out now_, she swallowed her fears and opened the door.

"Rafael." Her smile was slight but genuine.

"Olivia." He steps in, putting his coat over one of his chairs. He's changed out of his usual uniform of high quality, well-tailored suits into just a collared shirt and jeans and cream and purple sweater. _Leave it to Barba to look dapper even when dressed down_, Liv thinks wryly. _He could have stepped off the cover of GQ or some cigar magazine even when wearing jeans._

The silence is awkward for a moment, neither of them quite sure what to say.

"Let me get you some scotch." Liv breaks the tension. "I've been told this brand is quite good."

Rafael eyes the bottle. "It's no Macallan but this is good scotch. Nice choice, Liv."

She pours them both a glass, disregarding his keen stare as he notices that she takes it straight. He prefers this brand of scotch with some ice, Laphroaig has a deep peaty flavor which can be disconcerting and harsh if you've never had it.

"Here's to a healthier and happier new year for both of us." She lifts her class and he smiles at her. "I can drink to that."

She takes a big swallow…and promptly coughs. Rafael hides a smile behind his hand. Liv gives him the evil eye, still coughing, but a small smile's playing around her mouth.

"Goddamn," she says, "that stuff burns like hell."

"It's definitely different if you're not used to it. Still, a good choice. You might want to sip it, though. Or try it on the rocks." He smiles, to let her know he's not being a condescending asshole.

And something tight and hard in Liv loosens.

Just like that, the tension eases and they both start talking, as they did the night in his office, both of them trying to put the elephant of William Lewis behind them. He doesn't deserve to take over their lives; neither of them are going to give him that victory.

And it's working. He tells some godawful, bawdy joke that he'd heard from one of his friends in the DA's office. But it makes her laugh. "God, Barba," she says in disgust, "who thinks of these things?"

"Someone with way too much time on their hands." She likes the way he smiles, it's half way between a smirk and a grin. She's rarely really seen him truly smile. Most of his smiles have been skillfully practiced, almost like a politician. The type of smile that conveys pleasantries without truly conveying warmth and humor. And she realizes it's part of his mask. The mask that rarely slips.

_Who are you really, Rafael Barba_?

She's caught glimpses of the man behind the prosecutor but those are rare and immediately afterwards it's just business as usual for weeks. Almost as if he regrets opening up at all.

_Can you leave your walls down just a little? _

Liv's surprised to discover that she really wants to know him. Real and genuine friends are rare. And from what little she knows of Rafael Barba, she senses he could be a friend worth having. He's loyal, almost to a fault, but he's got a strong sense of integrity underneath the quips and slicing wit inside and outside the respects that.

He's a good man, tough exterior notwithstanding.

"So tell me about yourself, Olivia."

"What do you want to know?"

"What do you feel comfortable telling me?"

She's intrigued. No one's really asked her that before. But he just sits there, looking at her, not judging. Just listening. So she starts to talk.

Talks about her mother.

Talks about living life with a functional alcoholic. Doesn't really talk about her father because she's not quite ready for that yet. It took her a while to tell Amaro about the circumstances around her conception, and she's still uncertain of where she stands with Barba. She's told him so much already, but really just about what happened with Lewis. And even then, she's left things out. She's hidden things. And he knows it.

He also doesn't know the half of her story. That Lewis wasn't the first time she'd been assaulted.

This…whatever _this is… _these are so unfamiliar waters for her and she's not quite sure how to navigate them.

It's like that evening in his office. While she's now a bit more used to his human side, seeing it is always disconcerting and she's still figuring out how to handle it.

But Olivia Benson's never been one to back down from a challenge.

She manages a funny story or two from cases she's worked - which is rare because there's so much about her job that's not funny at all. So they take the humor where they can find it. And he laughs. A real, genuine laugh - not the fake party laugh you give when you hate the joke that's been told but you don't want to offend your host.

The laughter and smile, they make him look younger, the lines around his eyes and mouth soften and there's a light in them she doesn't see often. In fact, in her line of work, she doesn't see that light in anyone's eyes much, if at all.

It's a comforting sight. And it becomes easier for her to think of him as Rafael. Human just like the rest of the world.

This time the silence is comfortable, not strained. They find that neither of them have to say words, just sitting there, sipping their scotches, is enough.

_Hush now, watch the stars fall _

_Into a fire wall _

_I am waiting here _

_Waiting for you to come home_

— **Norah Jones, 'Waiting'**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

…_**.that place was so dark there. And I realized that I haven't thrived there. – **_**Surrender Benson**

_Are you strong, inside, are you full of pride?_

_Or just petrified_

_When you're alone, at night, do you run and hide?_

_Are you strong, inside, are you full of pride?_

_Or just petrified_

_-_Petrified from **Taboo **

A sharp shot breaks the silence. And the sound of shattering glass.

And the thing Liv fears most, short of Lewis being free, happens….again.

She drops to the ground, back on the floor of that car, hearing the gunshot that killed the cop. Her glass falls to the floor and shatters, the amber liquid spilling on the floor and on to the carpet. _Well, that's no big loss, _she thinks vaguely, _I fucking hate that carpet. _

She could feel the panic attack coming over her again as she hears what sounds like more gunfire in the distance, more glass shattering, the sirens starting to sound. It's somewhat of a normal sound in this part of the city but she's so on edge, this fractures her self-control.

The trembling starts first, then everything around her narrows to a single point. The panic's wrenching her body like a seizure.

She doesn't even register what Barba's doing, she's too busy protecting herself. _Goddammit, Olivia, what kind of cop are you when you can't even protect someone else, _she thinks vaguely, huddled on the floor, back against the couch.

Her skin's soaked with sweat and she can hear a voice…it's far away like it's coming from a great distance.

"Oliva. _Olivia. Liv_." Oh God. Her mind registers that it's Barba and all she can think of is that it's the _fucking second time that this has happened around him and why is he always there when she's losing it? _

She's huddled in a ball, head in her hands. And she's back in that bedroom, holding the bedpost, bringing it down once, twice, three times, then four… she can hear the crunch of bones and the 'thunk' noise it makes against Lewis's flesh. Can see the streams of blood on his face, on his chest. And it's not enough, she wants to keep beating him until he's dead, dead, dead. She hears the primal scream that tore through her body as she unleashed the torrent of terror, fear, anger, and hatred that she'd been holding in for those four long days. All she can hear was that scream…it will echo in her nightmares for years to come.

She brings down the bedpost one more time. And all her vision is crimson and black and shades of despair.

There's a hand on her shoulder. She flinches, wrapping her arms around herself. _Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't hurt me. _Despite it all, her eyes are dry. She can't cry. Only whimpers and rocks herself, trying to calm herself, hoping to God that Barba knows enough to keep quiet about this. _Just breathe, Olivia, just breathe. _ _One, two, three. One, two, three._

Then she feels an arm around her shoulder, a very gentle arm. And a hand gently rubbing her shoulders, her back, in circles. Slowly, methodically, in a kind of rhythm or cadence. She's still trembling but the shaking's not as violent. The weight on her chest is lifting. The haze of darkness starts to roll back and things begin to come back in focus. But it's not over yet. _It's never over_. _It will never be over._

She can still hear herself scream. And that's all she is. That shattering scream.

Barba's whispering something to her. She's not sure what it is. It's all such a fog of terror, pain, and fear. But whatever Barba's saying, it's soothing. And it pierces the fog. Like the night when he had held her after she had pulled the gun on him. A hand touches her head, strokes her hair. Then his other arm wraps around her and he pulls her tight to him, as he sits down next to her on the apartment floor. And instead of resisting, she leans into his shoulder, her face buried in his chest.

Safe.

Rafael Barba's a man who likes to be in control. He doesn't care for surprises and everything has a place. He doesn't deviate from his routine much (if at all) and he likes to have the upper hand on the elements surrounding him. Never again would he be at the mercy of someone (or something) else.

But since he's gotten to know Benson better, that's been changing. He's being constantly thrown off-stride. Forcing to change stride mid-stream and quickly.

The words that come so naturally to him are useless when it comes to her. His quick wit and sharp tongue serve him well in court but when trying to show compassion to someone who is suffering, he feels helpless. His barbed one-liners are useless and he's never been good at comforting people. _**"I'm a prosecutor, not a healer**_."

And it's true. He hasn't been a comforter, not for a very long time.

Years ago, at a very young age, he learned the hard way never to let his guard down. Because if you showed any weakness at all, the bullies loved to exploit it. As they often did with him. As a child, since he was always the bookish one, the bullies had shown him no mercy. Thankfully, Eddie Garcia had always had his back.

Bless Eddie. One of the few who had truly loved him and whom he had loved back. His first real friend.

And, for a moment, something more.

_God, Eddie, I miss you, old friend._

_Fuck you, Alejandro __Muñoz._

Oh, Rafael's learned very quickly to keep his mask up and his walls closed. And he's been building his walls for so many years, he's almost forgotten what it's like to live without them. His walls, his mask, they're his second skin. They've served him well in the courtroom – they're part of what makes him so good at what he does. His armor's impenetrable and the enemy can't slip past it.

But since Benson's appearance in his life, those walls have been weakening. And the man, the boy he used to be, is starting to reappear. Who would have thought that the shark of the courtroom had a heart? And who would have thought that she would be the one to slip under his guard?

So few people had managed to do that.

Looking at Liv huddling against her couch, trying desperately to control her trembling, his heart aches. No matter how hard he tries to keep his mask on and the walls up, he can't. More significantly, he finds that he doesn't want to. So he crouches down at her side, flinching a little himself at the sounds of the gunfire, and places his hand on her shoulder. And as the prosecutor slinks into the shadow, the young man from the barrio returns.

The man who still knew how to feel, how to care. Who knew how to show compassion, empathy and understanding. He's been gone a long time but, thanks to Olivia Benson, he's been making reappearances.

_God, I can only imagine the hell she's been through. _What she hasn't told him isn't important now. Somehow he needs to comfort her and how is he going to do that?

So he doesn't try to speak to her, any words that he would say would sound false and forced. Benson doesn't need that. What Barba senses she needs is something he's uncertain he'll be able to give her. But he would try as he's done before; she's become his friend, of sorts, and he doesn't have friends. Not ones he really trusts or is intimate with; he doesn't allow people to get that close. Not anymore.

"Olivia." He says very softly. "Olivia. _Liv_." She's still not really responding. The weight lies so heavy on her chest. Awkwardly, Barba puts his hand on her shoulder, gently trying to get her out of it. When that doesn't seem to do anything, Barba puts his arm around her and uses his other hand to rub her shoulders and back, gently, in circles. He reaches into the memories of his childhood and remembers something his _mamá _would tell him when he was a little boy and had nightmares.

So he whispers it into her hair, near her ear. He's not sure that she can really hear but it's the only thing he knows to say. The only thing he _can _say because all of his other words fail him. Rafael Barba, the self-confident, arrogant, quick-tongued terror of the Manhattan and Brooklyn courtrooms, is struggling to find his words. Which is a rarity and it's shaking him. But her trembling is easing a little and he can see her trying to pull herself together. Throwing caution to the wind, he places a hand on her hair, stroking it. Then, sitting down, back against the couch, he pulls her into him. To his surprise, she leans into him and buries her head in his chest.

They stay that way for a while and the trembling stops. But she doesn't pull away. He doesn't do anything, simply sits there, his arm around here, looking out the window at the dark New York sky, simply trying to find the stars in the darkness while they're both riding out the pain. Counting stars is comforting. He used to do it as a boy, when he couldn't sleep at night.

It seems like hours later but it's probably been minutes.

"Rafael?" Her voice is soft, strained with the tears that she's not allowed herself to shed. And she continues to hold them back.

"What is it, Liv?" His arm tightens around her a little, trying to make her feel safe. Trying to shut out the demons and the shadows, if just for that moment. If she could see his eyes, she'd be able to see the pain he feels for her. The empathy he has but he keeps hidden from the world's prying eyes.

Barba's thankful she can't see him. There are tears in his eyes and he can't let her see them. From what she's said, he knows she is so tired of the pity, tired of being treated like she's only a victim. His pity would undo her and he has too much respect for her to let her see that in his eyes. So he simply strokes her hair, letting her rest her head on his chest. Letting her keep her dignity.

"Second night I've done this to you. Have you pissed off the universe or something?" With relief, he hears a faint smile in her voice. She's strong.

"Oh, I don't know about the universe." He responds lightly, smiling a little. "A few hundred criminals, judges and lawyers, definitely."

She raises her head off his chest and gives him a smirk. "Knowing you, I _definitely_ can believe that." There's the Benson he knows and admires, shaken but humor definitely intact.

Realizing that she's still huddled into him, she pulls back, rubbing her hands across her face. "I'm sorry, Rafael. This was supposed to be a relaxing evening. The trial coming up, everything….the motion going against us didn't help. I'm still stressed, I guess."

"Anyone would be, Liv. It's completely understandable. I'd be more concerned if you were behaving like nothing happened." He doesn't try to calm her with too many platitudes. He despises them himself and knows that she probably hates them just as much.

"I'm not supposed to be falling apart. I'm stronger than this." Now her voice is full of frustration and anger.

"You're too hard on yourself. You're allowed to be human." Barba says simply.

She laughs, as if it's a joke, but she simply finds it ironic. "My therapist says the same thing, you know. He says I need to give myself a break."

"He's right. And I know you know that. You're an intelligent woman, Liv. You've told victims similar things. Listen to yourself."

Again, he sounds so much like Lindstrom. Barba's a perceptive man. And far more human and understanding than she's given him credit for. She's always suspected there's a heart there, even in the beginning when he did his best to disprove that. It's just hidden beneath the acerbic wit and fancy suits.

Benson gets up, dusts off her pants, tries to flee the moment, and notices the broken glass. Reaches over for paper towels to wipe it up. Barba lets her do it; instinctively he senses that she may need to do this for herself. That she might resent his help. Because it's not just about cleaning up broken glass and spilled scotch.

So he stands back a little.

She looks up to him. Sees him with new eyes. "Want to help me clean this shit up?"

And Rafael knows she's not just talking about the broken glass.

His walls begin to crumble a little more.

"Of course. Always."


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's Note/Disclaimer: **Lyrics at the end are from Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah.' If you haven't seen Esparza sing it, you haven't lived. So do it.

**Chapter 15**

_Well, you have suffered enough_

_And warred with yourself_

_It's time that you won_

_-_Falling Slowly, **Glen Hansard**

After Liv's panic attack, Rafael doesn't leave right away. He stays and helps her clean up the remnants of the scotch off the floor. Both of them realize that their relationship's changed. How exactly, neither of them are sure. But both of them have been letting their walls down; both of them have seen the person behind the mask.

_You've seen me. You know me_.

Barba's fighting against his inclination to shut her out. He can't let her get too close. That way lies vulnerability and danger. But then she turns to him, "_Want to help me clean this shit up?"_

He can't say no.

So the two of them work in silence for a while. It's slightly strained because neither of them know exactly what to say to one another. Both of them are nervous to make another move because whatever this is….this friendship…is too fragile and neither of them want to say something that could shatter it.

Things are so delicate in the beginning; you go too far in any direction and you run the risk of ruining it forever. And yet if you don't say anything, things never progress. It's a fine balancing act.

"We don't need to talk about this, do we?" Liv brings it up first.

"Not at all." He smiles.

"I just want you to understand that this…" she gestures, indicating the panic attack and whole situation, "…this is not me. These past few weeks…"

He held up a hand. "Stop, Liv. You don't need to explain anything to me."

Her lips pursed, she shook her head. At a loss for words. Walking over to the window, she stares out into the night. After all, what's there to say? The shadows are back. Will always be there. No matter how far she runs, William Lewis is always at her heels. Is this always the way it's going to be? Never having a normal life because she can't outrun that son of a bitch?

A bitter iron taste fills her mouth and she realizes she's bit her lip so hard that it's bleeding.

She knows that Barba's near her because she gets a waft of his cologne, that unique smell that she's never smelled on anyone else. The scent of comfort, of home, and hot tropical nights. A scent that makes her remember safety, security, of a time in her life when pain and horror wasn't a constant companion.

"Olivia." He says her name softly, no judgment, no pity, just compassion.

Turning, she looks at him, scanning his face. He's good at putting up masks but he's not wearing one now. There's a hint of pity but more compassion than anything. And something else that she can't define.

"Come here, Liv."

And she does.

He pulls her into the circle of his arms and she doesn't resist. Simply lets him embrace her and doesn't say a word. There's nothing either of them can say to make this situation better.

"I'm in your corner." He whispers in her ear. "But I need you to trust me. Can you do that?"

She nods.

He steps back, looks into her eyes intently. Even relaxed, the prosecutor still's there in the shadows. "I know I've said this to you before. So many times you probably want to stuff it back down my throat." He laughs a little, then immediately turns serious. "But it's true. You can do this. _We can do this_."

Benson can almost believe herself it this time. His face is so close to hers and she sees the sincerity there. Nothing but the truth.

"Thank you, Rafael." Her smile is shaky, tremulous, but it exists. And that's enough.

"Don't thank me. You're the strong one. Thank yourself."

She realizes that he really does believe in her. More than she believes in herself. That touches her more than she can ever say and she can't find the words to thank him. They rise in her throat but she can't articulate them. No words seem adequate enough.

A smile crosses his face, it's faint and only touches his eyes a little, but it's there. And Benson knows that she doesn't need to thank him. He already knows.

"So, Rafael Barba," she clears her throat, trying to uncharge the atmosphere, which is still tense and fragile. "Tell me more about you."

"Oh, God." He rolls his eyes. "So we're back to that, are we?"

"You're not escaping that easily." Benson teases him. "Come on, Barba. _Really_?" The mood is lighter, Lewis is put away again, for the moment, back into the shadows. She be damned if she'd let him ruin this piece of her life too.

"Is this an evening between friends or an interrogation?" He quirks an eyebrow at her, a little smirk on his face.

"It can be whatever you want it to be." Liv grins. _Okay, that came out a lot more suggestive than she had meant it to be. _

_Was she __flirting __with Barba?_

"Oh?" His smile gets a little bit more pronounced and more mischievous. Instantly, she realizes she's made a mistake.

She's flustered... again. _Goddammit, how does he do that? _But she really shouldn't be surprised. Barba's skilled at throwing people off balance. He gives them just enough rope for them to hang themselves and then he comes in like a wrecking ball and ties the noose into a tidy knot that's impossible to undo.

Damn him and damn his tricks.

"Within reason." She hastily tries to backtrack. And it's a failed attempt.

"Never figured you for backing down, Liv." Oh, he's going to give it right back.

"Very well, then. Let this be whatever you want it to be." Benson throws down. Never let it be said she backs down from a challenge.

He steps closer. "Are you sure you want that, Detective?"

They lock eyes. And a different kind of tension rises.

And just like that, the game's changed.

_Is he attracted to her?_

_Goddamn, she's attracted to him._

_Fuck. She did not see this coming._

_She is so screwed._

Both of them simply stand there. Both of them completely thrown by what's happening, neither of them sure what to do. Barba doesn't want to move because Liv's been through too much and, damn, this would be just so fucking complicated and he's got the case to worry about and he can't get involved with her because that's just a distraction.

_Too many complications. Keep your head, Rafael. This is the last thing you both should be doing_.

_But aren't you __already i__nvolved? _A little voice gives him a gentle nudge.

He tries to ignore that little voice that tells him, _enough with the shoulds and 'ought to's - maybe this is about what you both __**need**__. _It's not working. He can't shut it out.

Benson sees his hesitation, reads his concern for her, and, by hell, she's sick and tired of being cautious. And maybe this is crazy and the wrong thing to do but she's so tired of doing the "right" thing. The expected thing. Nothing about this situation is normal so, really, is there any "right" or "wrong" thing to do at this point?

_God, I need to stop fucking analyzing everything._

Making her decision, she pulls him to her by his collar and kisses him.

It's no gentle peck on the lips either. It's hot and ferocious. And it's wonderful. He tastes like coffee and scotch and soft tropical winds under clear skies. Like the rain on soft fields and everything green in spring time. Kissing him feels right. Like she's coming home after a long journey. A sailor coming safely into harbor.

At first, he's completely thrown off and she's doing all the work. She knows he likes it because that's no gun she's feeling and, god, she can taste the stars of the evening, the salt ocean air, a quiet day in the park, and everything good. And it amuses her that she's caught the tightly wound prosecutor off guard.

_Take that, counselor._ _Do you have a rebuttal?_

And then...

_Holy fuck. He's kissing her back._

He's put his hands on her face and is kissing her back with all the breath in his body. Pushing his body against hers, his mouth opens hers and their tongues twine together. And it's hot and amazing and, god, where did he learn to kiss like that? Suddenly, Barba becomes the assertive one, pushing her up against the wall, but gently enough that it doesn't make her think about those four days…no, she's not going to go there.

It's just him and her, mouths, hands, bodies all tangled together, and she can't stop kissing him. Doesn't want to stop. And neither does he.

His hand slides up under her blouse, edging up towards her breast, but, suddenly, he stops.

She thinks she knows why. Quickly, she pulls away from him, shoves down her blouse. _He's felt her scars. She knows every single spot where Lewis made his mark. Every single one. _Sometimes when she can't sleep at night, she just lies in bed and counts each single one. She goes to sleep long before she even gets halfway through the count.

He's breathing heavily, leaning against the wall. Trying - and failing miserably - to adjust himself, to regain his self-control. Looks up at her, sees the naked vulnerability, hurt, in Liv's eyes as she processes what she thinks is the reason he's stopped touching her.

"This was a mistake." Liv scrambles away.

"Olivia." Rafael looks her in the eyes. "It's not what you think."

Benson's throwing up walls as fast as she can. "What do you think I'm thinking, Mr. I-Know-Everything?" She's truculent and defensive and he knows she's hurting. Knows that behind the tough exterior of the compassionate but no-nonsense detective is a very wounded and traumatized human being. Oh, she can put on a mask for the rest of the world and to him, but by now he can see past the disguise.

"I felt your scars." He says calmly. "They don't repulse me, Olivia. What repulses me is what Lewis did to you."

He lays his hand on her arm, just a gentle reassuring touch.

She scans his face and he meets her gaze calmly. All she sees is the truth. No equivocation. No lies.

It's up to her now. She can accept what he's saying and take a leap of faith or she can hide behind her walls, assume he's going to reject her, _leave _her, like so many others, and run while she still can. That would be the safer choice.

_Ships in harbor are safe but that's not what ships are made for._

He doesn't say a word. This is her choice to make and he can't do it for her. He wouldn't want to - so many decisions have been taken out of her hands already. He's simply got to stand back. Let her make her choice, free of pressure or coercion. As badly as he wants to touch her, she's got to be the one to make that choice.

_Isn't it time that you try something different, Olivia? _Phantom Lindstrom's words echo in her mind.

So she throws caution to the wind.

Once more, she pulls Barba to her. Nuzzling his nose, she kisses his mouth. Touches his tongue with hers. Tastes the smoky peat of the scotch on his mouth and it's glorious. She could drink of this, _of him_, for hours. And she just might. With no hesitation, she takes his hand and puts it where he'd stopped. Near her scars. On her skin. His hand is calloused, hard, but soft and it just feels _right_.

She notices something else too.

Her scars aren't burning.

There's no pain.

She trusts him.

And that's all the answer he needs.

_Your faith was strong but you needed proof _

_You saw her bathing on the roof _

_Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you _

_She tied you to a kitchen chair _

_She broke your throne, and she cut your hair _

_And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah_

So he kisses her, kisses her like it's his first time, his last time, and all others in between.

He's coming home at last.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

_Ahh home, let me come home  
>Home is wherever I'm with you<br>Ha home. Let me go home  
>Home is wherever I'm with you.<em>

— _**Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, 'Home'**_

Once they've started kissing, they can't really stop. The floodgates are unleashed and the tension of the last several weeks explodes - because Liv's not going to lie to herself, the attraction's really been there all the time, simmering under the surface. She's been dancing around it, he's been dancing around it, they've both been dancing around it. His hands don't really do much exploring at first - he gently strokes her skin, like it's the most precious thing he's touched. He wasn't lying to her – it's not the scars that bother him, it's the pain she endured.

As his fingers glide across each scar, his heart aches. For the trauma, the degradation, the torment Lewis had put her through. And the guilt for letting him walk is more than he can bear. _I should have done better. This is on me. _Salt splashes down on his fingers, on to her skin. And he stops. Liv feels his hesitation instantly and pulls back a little, taking his hand in hers.

"I'm so, so sorry, Liv." He says, his eyes full of sadness, regret, guilt. Full of words he didn't know how to say.

"It wasn't your fault, Rafael."

Guilt is a heavy burden for anyone to bear and Liv can see how it's weighing on him. She had tried to tell him back at the courtroom that none of this was his fault; he had done the best he could with what he had and that she hadn't blamed him. He hadn't wanted to hear it then, and she understands why now.

On his turf, he could show no vulnerability. _Show no weakness. Don't expose your throat._

"Were you the one that fucked up the lab results? That caused the cross-contamination?" She chides him gently. "You're a smart man, Rafael Barba. It's time that you stop blaming yourself for what Lewis did. How were you supposed to know that he was going to come after me? Are you a mind-reader? Okay, didn't think so. Was I angry at you at first? Sure. I was angry at a lot of people." She's not going to sugarcoat it because Barba respects honest and she at least owes him that. "But you don't need my forgiveness because you've done nothing that needs it."

His eyes meet hers, still full of uncertainty and regrets. And the type of sadness she's only seen once before, back after the events with Alex, Eddie and Yelina.

Olivia pulls him to her, lips close to his. "Rafael, you need to forgive yourself."

And her mouth covers his, making further words impossible. With her lips on his, she tries to convey the sincerity, the truth in her words. She knows no other way to convince him, other than to show him as best she can, that she's putting any anger with him behind her.

He relaxes into her kiss, and, again, his hands start touching, stroking, feeling. It's so much and not enough all at once. His hands caress the curves of her hips and slide up underneath her shirt, touching her breasts, lingering on them a little. They're full and he likes that. And she's all ice and fire and the sweetness of rain on hot summer evening.

He's gentle with her at first because he doesn't want to trigger her. But she's tired of being treated like china and it's time for her, time for both of them, to start moving past the trauma. She tangles her fingers in the belt loops of his jeans and pulls him tighter to her. She can't stop kissing him and he can't stop kissing her and it's as if they're both breathing for each other. Mischievously, she runs her fingers through his hair, pulling and yanking at it playfully. It's always so slick and gelled back and she likes seeing the usually collected ADA a bit disheveled because, honestly, it's fucking sexy.

And he loves it.

It's been years since he's had something like this. Benson's on his level, she's giving just as much as he is - she's gotten under his skin. In all his wildest imaginings (and there'd been a few from his alcohol-fueled binges in his school days), he'd never dreamt that what was happening between them now would ever happen at all. From the beginning, he and Benson had butted heads - she had been pretty suspicious of the wise-cracking, caffeinated, smart-ass, tough Brooklyn-import ADA. He had thought she'd been too soft. She thought he'd been too hard. Both of them had been somewhat wrong about each other.

But he's been drawn to her for a long time. Initially, he chalked it up to a combination of simple pity, compassion, and sex-deprived hormones. But when she had sat in that witness box and relayed to him exactly what Lewis had done to her, he had admired her strength, her courage. She could have broken and she didn't.

He quickly checked himself - she hadn't broken _that he had known of- _God knows what had happened in that cottage. Well, God, William Lewis, and Olivia Benson. And a shadow of doubt starts to creep into his brain but he pushes it back because all he wants now is her.

All he can see is her.

She's fearless and she's courageous and he adores that about her. He's seen her fight for the victims, go head to toe with him when she thought he wasn't doing enough, like a ferocious mother bear with her cubs. Because as hard as she might try to depersonalize them in order to keep her sanity, all the victims are personal for her. She knows their names and all their stories. Where they've been, where they're going. They aren't statistics and she's reminded him of that because it's gotten so easy for him to treat them just as case numbers.

It's much harder to treat Jane Doe and John Smith as just numbers when he knows their families, their history, whom they have loved and whom they have lost.

"Rafael." His name comes out like a gently autumn breeze and her voice is like smoke and velvet. She feels his hardness against her hip and knows what she's done to him. She smiles against his mouth, enjoying, relishing the fact that she's got him at her mercy and he's got her at his.

They're equals.

"Liv." Is all he can manage to say in response. He's having a tough time breathing - she's got him by the short hairs and he knows it. And he likes it.

A tsunami is coming and he has no resistance.

Looking into his eyes, she smiles. "Thank you, Rafael. I just want to tell you…"

Barba smiles for real now, his eyes crinkling up, and interrupts her. "That's enough talk, detective." He tangles his fingers in her hair and closes his mouth on hers again. She finds that she likes it when he pulls her hair. He finds he likes it when she's a little forceful with him. And there's a sensitive area around his neck that she discovers and she laughs like a girl when he jumps as she runs her tongue along it. And they both laugh because at this point they're making out like horny teenagers, hands all over the place, a little rough but not too much, it's just so fucking perfect.

Both of them have forgotten how wonderful getting lost could be.

And God, how he loves her laugh. She doesn't do enough of it. He finds he wants to make her laugh more. Would do anything to make her laugh more. Would do anything to see her smile because it transforms her and he thinks she's absolutely beautiful. And, god, where did this all come from?

But he doesn't push for more, he's not ready and neither is she. They're simply content to kiss each other. All the words they have a tough time articulating, all the things they want to say somehow get conveyed through their mouths on each other.

Eventually, though, it gets late. And the cold dose of reality hits them both like a bucket of ice cold water. Because, in life, all good things must come to an end. Even for them.

Especially for them.

So Liv and Rafael pull apart, reluctantly. He runs his hand along her face in a gesture of affection that almost undoes her.

"Are you ready for this?" He asks her yet again, his eyes serious now.

_Okay, fun stuff is over. Back to reality._

"I am." She's still nervous but she has him and he'll fight for her.

"If there are any surprises, you need to tell me now." How quickly he goes from romantic to prosecutor. But she really doesn't expect any less than that. It's who he is.

She doesn't say a word and the shadow of doubt that was in his head earlier returns. He scans her face narrowly. _Oh, Olivia, if there's something I need to know, you need to tell me._

A chill of fear creeps up his spine but he doesn't let her see it.

That she's hiding things, he knows. Exactly how much she's hiding he doesn't know. And he can only hope to God that it doesn't come back to bite him in the ass.

"There's nothing." She says firmly, eyes locking on his. He still doesn't believe her.

They've exchanged some kisses tonight, but, Barba's no fool, he knows that really doesn't change the fact that she's hiding secrets. That they both are, really. Portions of Rafael's past lay cloaked in shadows and there they'll remain. That's the way it has to be.

Reality's a bitch.

"It's late." He says, somewhat abruptly.

"I know." She sees the change immediately and responds in kind. "I'll be ready."

"Good." He gives her one of his curt head nods.

_So this is how it's going to be_.

But she gets it. He's the type to compartmentalize. He has to. He can't let his emotions affect his judgment. As much as both of them want to explore this sudden thing between them, getting Lewis is the endgame. Nothing can jeopardize that.

Liv doesn't judge him at all - she would do the same thing. Has done the same thing.

She also knows that shadows lie between them, the shadows of things unsaid, the things held back. He knows, she knows…they both know.

And that'll change things. It's not a question of _if_ things will change - it's simply a matter of when. So she'll enjoy this for whatever _this_ is - a brief shining moment of happiness in the storm. Because that's all it is. A brief moment.

She's never been allowed more than that.

"For what it's worth, Rafael." She says softly. "I don't regret this."

_Before things change, you need to know._

"Neither do I, Liv." He says softly. Leans over and kisses her mouth. Kisses her tenderly and softly, pulling her head to his. For a moment, he leans his forehead against hers, in a gesture of affection and vulnerability that's so unlike the gruff, smart-ass prosecutor she's gotten to know over these many months that it almost breaks her. Rafael has slipped under her walls like they were just silk curtains and she finds that she doesn't care.

Because she feels safe.

Cherished.

Wanted.

Then, a few minutes later he breaks away for the last time, and with a small smirk on his face, he gathers up his coat. Looking back at her one more time, he bows his head. Like he's done so many times in court.

_**I'm right here. In your corner**_.

_Fighting for you_.


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer: **Characters not mine. Psycho/Therapist isn't mine. Any revisions, additions, changes are mine. Dialogue from the show in bold.

**Chapter 17**

The morning is cold and there are storm clouds on the horizon. They've been building for a while, as they always do and the sky itself seems sullen, like the whole world knows what's coming.

Benson takes a deep breath. Jury selection's been completed. And opening arguments have been scheduled for tomorrow. The day she's been dreading for so long is finally here. She's somewhat surprised to realize that the intense fear that she'd been dreading would be present actually isn't. Maybe because she's realizing she has one of the best warriors in her corner. A warmth steals over the chill that's been gripping her heart for so long and she meets eyes with Barba quickly.

They've not discussed what transpired at her apartment - _typical - _but she's noticed the thaw in his manner towards her. It's faint, because he can't be obvious - he is a professional at keeping his public life and private life separate - but it's there. When their eyes met as she slid into the rows behind him, he simply nods at her, but there's a warmth in his eyes that hadn't been there before. He's unsmiling - this is serious business, that of life and death, after all - but that thaw is all for her.

_I'm in your corner._

She can do this.

Then the storm breaks. It starts to rain, one drop at a time. But those who are watching closely, those who know these types of things can sense the gathering fury. Some people shrug it off as just an abnormal winter storm. Others put their faces to the wind and can see the lightning flash in the distance. Can smell the difference between a squall and a nor'easter.

This one is going to shake them all.

"_**The people are satisfied with the empaneled jury, Your Honor."** _

Well, then. Opening arguments have been scheduled for tomorrow morning. Benson braces herself. After months and months of waiting, nerves rubbed raw, finally they have the chance to put the monster behind bars for good.

"_**If I may, Your Honor?"**_

Olivia sits up straighter, momentarily confused and instantly suspicious. What the fuck is Lewis playing at now?

"**_I offered a plea that would have guaranteed a lengthy prison term and would have spared the victim the pain of a trial_." **

She wants to roll her eyes. No way in hell did Lewis want to spare her _any _pain. That was a fucking crock. Both she and Barba know it.

He continues, **"**_**My so-called attorney has failed to get the DA's office to accept my capitulation. I have serious reservations about her competence. I would like to request a change of attorney.**__"_

Lewis' attorney looks dumbfounded. And she's not that good an actress - Benson sees that this comes as a complete shock to her. Liv can't repress her eyeroll. More games.

The judge eyes her_. _"_**Counselor**_**?**"

"_**I'm just hearing about this now**_**, **_**your honor.**_**"** She says emphatically, giving Lewis a glare. _Sit down and shut up, you fool._

Barba glares at her, not at all convinced by her claim. "Really? You're just hearing about this now?" He looks at the judge. **"**_**Your honor, this is a oft-used delaying tactic of Mr. Lewis' in several trials."**__ Please tell me you're not going to let him get away with this._

"_**I'm not requesting any additional time**_**."** Lewis reassures the judge.

His honor looks at Lewis with a good deal of skepticism. **"**_**Realistically, it would take any attorney months to get up to speed.**_**"**

"_**I don't believe it would, your honor. Not if the attorney was myself."**_

Benson exhales sharply. He's got to be kidding. Representing himself? Was he fucking out of his mind? Would she really have to deal with him cross-examining her on the stand? How much MORE humiliation did she have to endure at this man's hands? _Breathe, Olivia, breathe… don't catastrophize. One…two…three…one…two…three._

Out of the corner of his eye, Barba doesn't miss the flash of fear on Benson's face.

"_**Mr. Lewis is using this trial to publicly humiliate and retraumatize Detective Benson.**_**"** He's infuriated. And getting really fucking tired of Lewis's little games. Some predators just needed to be put down. Lewis is one of them.

"I was the one who offered to SPARE her this whole thing." Lewis retorts smoothly. _Don't be pinning this one on me, counselor, _the smug look on his face says. _**"But this isn't up for debate**_." He continues. "_**This is my constitutional right, is it not?**_"

There would be nothing more satisfying to Barba than punching William Lewis. But he simply says nothing and keeps his poker face in place.

"It is your right. _**However**_," and the judge eyes Lewis closely, "_I __**will insist that you keep your current attorney with you to advise, and if Mr. Barba's fears prove prescient, I will strike you with contempt.**_Is that clear?"

Lewis tries, but doesn't completely manage to hide his satisfaction. "Perfectly, your honor." Adjusting his suit a little, he smirks at Benson as he walks out of the room. Liv simply stares him down. _Try to rattle me, you little prick, and see where that gets you. _

_Every mornin', every evenin', aint we got fun..._

Barba shoves his papers in his briefcase and doesn't give either the attorney or Lewis another glance. Lewis is just playing more games and as angry as this makes him, he won't let it get to him. Looking over at Olivia, he notes the strain on her face and her tension. Wanting badly to comfort her but knowing that he can't be anything but professional in public, he simply asks her if she's all-right.

"I'll be better when this is behind me and he's in prison." She smiles tightly.

"We'll get him. This is just another one of his little games. It doesn't mean anything." If he says this out loud, maybe it will be true. "Hang in there."

Every word he's just said is so clichéd and, as soon as they come out of his mouth, he wants to take them all back, but the words he wants to say he can't and won't say out loud.

There can't ever be a question of him losing his objectivity. Of losing his perspective.

"I should get going, long day tomorrow." Liv rises. She's drained already and the trial hasn't even started.

"Let me walk you out."

"You don't need to do that - I'm fine." She smiles to take any offense out of her voice.

"Humor me." A slight smile plays around his mouth. The mouth that she had been kissing not too long ago. She can still taste the scotch and the smoke. It tastes just as good in memory. Amidst the turmoil of the trial, she holds tight to those memories. They steady her, keep her warm.

"Very well, counselor." From the look in his eyes, she can see that he's not missed the way her eyes flicked to his mouth. Oh, he's keeping his composure well but she gets a deep feeling of satisfaction that he's not as unmoved as he pretends. _I know you, Rafael Barba. I've seen behind that mask._

They walk out together and he suggests a quick cup of coffee. Simply to review the strategy for the following day, he assures her. Yet his eyes are full of the words he keeps silent to himself. Benson doesn't say no, she's not eager to get back to her apartment – alone to face the nightmares that are sure to come.

She sees the words unspoken and grips his hand briefly.

_We can do this_.

**THE NEXT MORNING**

As expected, Olivia didn't sleep at all. The nightmares were worse than usual – all she could see when she closed her eyes at night was Lewis' face grinning at her from the darkness. Waking up around 3 drenched in sweat, she'd given up trying to get any rest at all and had simply read some fluffy novel that Casey had given her once. It was absolutely unrealistic and completely absurd but it had made her laugh. (_God, did people really do that during sex? Because no.) _

Anything was better than trying to sleep with Lewis in her head. Because even there, he didn't shut up.

She shows up early to the trial, grabs a triple espresso because, God, she is so tired. Almost had left the apartment with her shirt on inside-out. Rubbing her face with her hands, trying to avoid smudging her concealer, she ignores the nausea rising in her stomach.

Eating's been out of the question. She hasn't been able to keep anything down for the last few days but she's kept that to herself.

On the way in, she runs into Cassidy. They exchange a few words, it's a little awkward but she's grateful he showed up. While the romance hadn't lasted, the friendship would. _**I love you, Brian. Always will**_. Cassidy embraces her briefly, she closes her eyes and holds tight to him for a few moments.

"Thank you." Is all she can find to say.

"Anytime, Liv." Cassidy gives her that awkward smile he always would give her when he didn't have the right words to say.

They part and she walks to the courtroom. Sits down and tries to calm her stomach. _Any moment now..._

And Cragen, Amaro, Rollins and Fin are there to greet her.

"_**Lookin' strong, Olivia**_**."** Fin knows the right thing to say. Always has.

Liv is touched and words fail her. _**"You came."**_

"_**We got your back."**_ Rollins smiles slightly at Benson, tipping her head slightly. Fin nods his head and the rest follow in suit. On their faces, she sees nothing but support and concern. None of the pity she'd seen in their eyes so many days after her assault and she's grateful for that.

Only the smell of his cologne alerts Olivia to Rafael's presence. He's so quiet and she has no idea how he does that. Remarkably light on his feet, that man. _That smell is so comforting... _She bites her lip, that slight pain helping her regain focus. This was not the place to be distracted.

"What are you people doing here?" Barba snaps exasperatedly, simply giving Benson a curt nod. He also hasn't slept and he's only had two cups of coffee so far which is doing nothing for his temper. "You can't watch the trial. You're all witnesses." His nerves are also a little less steady than they normally are and he's angry at that too.

"_**We're here for moral support."**_ Cragen interjects, his eyes meeting Barba's calmly. _You're familiar with the concept, aren't you?_

"_**Just remember what we're here for."**_ Barba says, as much to remind himself as them. He needs to keep that at the front of his mind. There's no room for anything else. The stakes are too high.

Fin gives Barba a steady stare. **"**_**Don't mess this up again, counselor**_**." ** _It was because of you that Lewis walked the first time. _Although left unspoken, Rafael can hear the words hovering in the air and he feels a spark of anger. And that old familiar guilt. He could have done better. Should have done better.

But he'd be damned if he was going to let them see that. Quickly strengthening his poker face, he simply looks at all of them. _**"I was going to tell you the same thing."**_ He bites as he walks into the courtroom.

It's showtime.

_**Remember why we're here.**_


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer:** _Psycho/Therapist plot and quotes (in bold italic, for the most part) belong to Dick and NBC, as do the characters. Any plot embellishments and changes are mine._

**Author's Note**: _this chapter was a bear to write and I'm still not happy with it. Can I say how much I hate writing courtroom scenes?_

**Chapter 18**

Fin is the first one to testify. Barba simply lets him talk about what he saw at Benson's apartment. He makes for a good witness. Collected, calm, and yet his words carry weight with the jury. With no elaboration or embellishment, he describes simply what he saw there.

"_**At that point, my partner and I broke into Detective Benson's apartment. It was destroyed. Glass was everywhere, furniture turned over, bloody duct tape…we found coat hangers and keys on the stove, cigarette butts…**_"

Fin's relatively impassive while he's saying this but Barba can see what seeing that must have cost Fin. That's the thing about poker faces. They reach everywhere but the eyes. And Fin's bleeding from them.

…_**I'll never forget the smell of burnt flesh.**_

Short. Simple. But heartbreaking. Fin and Barba lock eyes. They understand each other. "Thank you, detective." Barba says and walks back to his table, tamping down the revulsion he feels every time he hears the details of what Lewis has done.

_Show no weakness._ _His defeat is the end game._

Lewis hobbles up to the witness stand, wincing. What part of this is actual pain and what part is actual theatrics for the jury, of that Rafael is not sure.

But he's not fooled. He recognizes all the signs of a tiger read to pounce. Lewis might be weakened but he's not out. Far from it.

"_**Ladies and gentlemen, you'll have to forgive me, I'm moving slower these days due to the brutal beating I received at the hands of detective Benson…**_"

Son of a bitch comes out swinging. Those goddamned theatrics. "Your honor?" Rafael interjects. He has no patience with Lewis' drama and neither does the judge.

"_**Move it along, Mr. Lewis**_." _You asshole. _

"_**Well, that was quite a vivid description you gave, detective Tutuola**_." Lewis says smoothly, hobbling up to the witness stand. "One might even think you staged the scene yourself." Fin doesn't respond, simply gives Lewis a "what the fuck" look and says nothing. He was prepared.

"This whole thing that you describe. Happened two days after a case against me had been declared a mistrial, isn't that right?"

Fin responds tersely. "That's correct."

"And you were pretty upset about that, weren't you?" Lewis prods and pokes.

Fin's not playing that game. Plays it close to the vest.

"_**We were all pretty upset**__." _

_Well done, Tutuola. Don't give him an inch. He'll take a mile._

"And yet it took you all a couple of days to go check her apartment when she didn't show up to work?"

"Captain Cragen actually told her to take some time." Fin doesn't back down.

"She was pretty upset after that, wasn't she?" Lewis consults his notes. "And, wouldn't you say, obsessed?"

Looking at Lewis with suspicion - he knows he's going somewhere with this and he's pretty sure it's not someplace good - Barba sits up. "_**Objection. Calls for speculation.**_"

_That'll teach you._

"Sustained." The judge eyes Lewis. _Tread carefully._

_Oops_. Lewis doesn't look sorry at all. "My bad, I'm sorry, your honor. How long," he eyes Fin, "after you broke into the apartment, were you alone before CSU showed up?"

"Not long. _**Fifteen minutes if that**_**." **

"_**Long enough to plant evidence?**__"_

Rafael knows where he's going and he doesn't like it. He had warned them this was going to be a problem and while he could guide his witnesses past some of the shoals, there were going to be some bumpy waters ahead. Frowning, he jots down more notes on his pad. Trying not to think of what Benson must be feeling, knowing that soon she would be face to face with the man that put her through so much misery. _Hang in there, Liv. Hang in there_.

Fin simply frowns; Barba can practically see the _motherfucker _on his face, although, to give him credit he was keeping his composure_. _

"Your honor…" _Why the hell are you letting him get away with so much here? _He hears the frustration in his voice and checks himself. It's early and already Lewis is getting under his skin. Son of a bitch.

_**Tamp down your emotions...don't take the bait**_**. **

"**Mr. Lewis**, " the judge will have none of it, "_**I've given you latitude because you're representing yourself but **__**watch yourself**__**." **_

Lewis tries to look contrite and it fails spectacularly. Keeping his cool, he keeps up his interrogation of Fin, who just continues to look at him like he's nothing more than a loathsome cockroach that's simply not worth his time. A cockroach he'd like very much to crush into the pavement.

They eye each other like opponents going into the boxing ring.

"So," Lewis saunters up to the witness stand, "about that lab where you had the evidence processed. This is the same lab that contaminated the evidence in my previous trial, is that correct?"

"I gave them the evidence," Fin said firmly, "and I told them that there could be no mistakes this time."

Lewis simply smiles a little. Fin's just told him exactly what he wanted to hear. "So, when you went back to the lab, you made sure that they knew that a NYPD detective had been assaulted and that I was your only suspect. Is that correct?"

"I was following standard protocol."

"**Oh, I agree**." Lewis smirks and turns to the jury leaving Fin to stew helplessly on the bench. No matter what he said, Lewis had been steering this line of questioning in that direction all along and there was no way to avoid the traps he set.

_Shit. _Barba keeps his poker face on but he knows Lewis has scored here. As he suspected from the beginning and had _warned_ the squad about, Lewis was building a case for a vendetta on the part of the NYPD but especially on the part of Benson. And the shots against Fin were the first volley in the battle.

Lewis' trial was about to become Benson's.

But he's prepared for that, has been prepared for that since the moment he suspected that Benson was holding things back. And he's ready.

Next is Rollins and Barba takes her through the events at the Mayers' home. She describes the blood trail and finding Mrs. Mayer hanging in the closet.

As she starts to talk about what she heard in the ambulance, Lewis makes an objection. "_**Hearsay, your honor**_."

The judge nods, "_**Sustained. Jury will disregard**_."

Biting his lip and struggling not to show any frustration, Barba lets Lewis cross-examine Amanda. Each step he plans, Lewis seems to be just one step ahead of him. _This is fucking ridiculous_, Barba seethes. As he walks back to the table, Lewis catches his eye and there's a hint of smirk there and Barba wants to wipe it off his face.

_Calm yourself, Rafael_, he tells himself. _He's playing you. All of them. Don't let him do that_.

And he counts quietly to himself, jots a few more notes down on his notepad. Some of them make no sense at all but it's calming and he has to stay level headed. Too much is at steak. He can't let her down again. Let himself down again.

"_**How are you today, Amanda…I mean, detective Rollins**_." He says jovially. Rollins stares him down. _You son of a bitch_, she thinks, _I'm not playin' your games with you_.

Lewis proceeds to go into some bullshit spiel about their "history" talking about it like it was some casual misunderstanding. She will have none of that and tells exactly what constitutes that "history." She can barely keep the utter disdain and contempt out of her voice but she stays calm and collected.

Barba's proud of her.

"You were pretty upset about the result of my previous trial, were you not, Amanda…I mean, detective Rollins."

_I swear to God, I will gut you like one of the fish I used to catch if I hear you say my first name once again. _But she keeps her face expressionless.

"Yes." _You __were__ guilty, you son of a bitch_.

"Were you upset enough to concoct a plot with your fellow detectives to frame me for Detective Benson's kidnapping? _**Stage the crime scene. Lie on the stand**__?"_

Rollins is angry. She doesn't like her integrity being questioned and, frankly, neither does Barba.

"_**That's ridiculous**_**." **

"Objection. This whole line of questioning is ridiculous." Even as he says it, Rafael knows this is a weak objection. Lewis is simply doing a cross-examination, nothing more outrageous than things he's seen before, and yet he just wants to stop him. Wants to shut him down before he can do anymore damage. Because so far he's done too much.

"I'm entitled to my cross-examination, am I not?" Lewis acts like he's been attacked personally.

"He is, Mr. Barba." The judge frowns slightly at Rafael, as if even he expected better. "Answer the question, Detective."

"I don't believe I heard a question in there." She glares at Lewis. "_**Did I concoct a plot to frame you? No, I did not**_**."**

"That wasn't my question." He looked at her. "_**My question was: could you have**_?"

Nick doesn't fare much better. Despite Amaro's best efforts to defend his partner, to explain the techniques she used in interrogating Lewis, the picture Lewis is painting of Olivia as a lonely, obsessed, sex-deprived workaholic is taking shape with vivid colors. It's not a pleasant one. But, unfortunately, for those who don't know Olivia the way Rafael does, the way the whole squad does, it's believable.

Too damned believable.

And right now all he can seem to do is watch as Lewis very carefully pokes holes into each detective's story. Right now, it's clearly enough for reasonable doubt. And scanning the jury, Barba can sense that some of them are buying it. Especially the forewoman who has been listening intently to everything Lewis has been saying, even nodding, as if in agreement, at points.

Barba grits his teeth. This round goes to Lewis. But this battle is not nearly done, the war not nearly over.


	19. Chapter 19

Disclaimer: See prior disclaimers.

Author's note: Quotes from the show in bold italics. Lyrics from Greg Laswell (_Comes And Goes_)

Chapter 19

_This one's for the lonely, the ones that seek and find_

_Only to be let down time after time_

_This one's for the torn down, the experts at the fall_

Benson needs a shower. She needs one very badly. But she can't have one right now so, instead she settles for her usual stress relief, a nice red cabernet. It's difficult to resist the urge to drain the glass within five minutes but, despite the low lighting in the restaurant where she, Fin, Amaro and Rollins are sitting, she'd rather not do that in front of her squad. She doesn't want them to see how very close to the edge she still is.

She cannot break. Not now. _Show no weakness_.

Her squad was very careful not to go into much detail about what went on in that courtroom. But Benson knows. Amaro, Rollins, even Fin… they all looked vaguely sick as they were walking out of the room. None of them really want to talk about it but what else is there? It's the all-consuming elephant in the room that is always there, that always haunts their steps, their dreams.

At least it does for her. And maybe for them, Benson doesn't know for sure and she doesn't ask. There's a comfort in letting things just _be_. Why disturb the underlying fragility? One wrong move and things shatter. So easily.

But they can't keep quiet about it and so they talk, giving Liv the occasional glance to make sure that she's okay. And, of course, she's not but she's so damn tired of people tiptoeing around her, like she's going to break. They know she hates that but it seems to be instinctive for them to want to protect her. 

To shelter her from any more pain. And that she understands.

"Guys, talk about it if you want. I don't care." Liv says wearily. "Just quit acting like I'm going to fall to pieces. I'm not."

"Are you sure?" Amaro asks, "Because we don't have to…"

"Goddammit, Nick," she snaps, "I'm _fine_. Just talk."

And he's quiet, concern in his eyes. And she wants to throw her wine across the table. Because there's only so much she can take and Lewis is coming for her. Again. _Keep pretending you're fine. Maybe if you pretend enough you'll actually be okay. Acting is like living, right?_

So they quietly talk about what happened in court but Benson doesn't hear it all, her mind is busy with constructing strategies on how she's going to handle Lewis' interrogation. What he might possibly say, what he might possibly do. Her food goes cold with the waiting, she can't eat a bite. It all tastes like dust and ashes anyway.

While she's playing with her food, her mind goes to Rafael and she wonders how he's doing. It couldn't have been easy for him, listening to her squad detail what they had found. Even worse having Lewis twist everything they say to put the blame squarely on her. _But wasn't it, though? Lewis turned you into someone like him_, a small voice taunted her. _How can you even claim to have any moral superiority at all?_ _You're a monster, just like him._

She takes a larger sip of her wine.

"So is Mrs. Mayer going to testify?" Rollins asks and it's a glad distraction to get her from her thoughts.

"Not if Lewis is going to question her."

"Can't blame her there." Rollins says thoughtfully. "_**He was making my skin crawl**_."

"_**Well, he can play all the games he wants**_." Amaro says softly, a growl in his voice. "_**It's not going to do him any good."**_

Liv's touched that he has so much faith and confidence. Because she's not sure she does. So much to come. So much that could go wrong.

Even before Barba's reached the table, Liv knows he's there. She can smell his distinctive cologne. Oh, God, that cologne… she can still remember the gentle touch of his hands on her skin, the softness in his voice and his eyes, the low murmur of the stream of Spanish that she couldn't quite understand but had somehow soothed her.

And how his body had just felt so right against hers.

It _fit_.

But when he speaks, there's none of the compassion and softness of the man from that evening. No, he is all prosecutor now and he is _pissed_.

"_**You're eating together? Right across from the courtroom? **_What are you people thinking? You know Lewis is trying to make the case that there's an NYPD vendetta against him, right? What part of that do you not understand?"

He's a little angrier than normal because he needs to talk to Olivia and it's not going to be pretty. How could she do this to him? So he's a bit testier than the squad than he'd normally be but, at the same time, they should know better. God, they're just making this more of an uphill battle than it needs to be. And it already is going to be hell.

"_**We're just eating dinner, counselor**_**." **Fin says patiently. It's been a long day for them all.

Barba doesn't particularly care. He's too angry, too frustrated, too…something. Something that he can't quite define but knows if he's really honest with himself, he'd almost call it _hurt_. But he can't afford to linger and analyze.

_**Tamp down your emotions. Don't take the bait**__._

Even if the bait was Olivia and the things she would not (or _could not?_) say.

"Liv." He says curtly and gestures to the door. _We need to talk._

She looks at the somewhat chastened squad - now busy collecting their tabs - and follows Rafael out the door.

"Rafael…" she smiles at him. Trying to break the obvious tension.

But he was having none of it.

He interrupts her brusquely. "_**Viva and Luisa **__**Núñez**__**. Who are they? Lewis added them to his witness list. Claims they were in the beach house. That can't be right.**__" _

_Please, Olivia, say this isn't right. That this is just one of Lewis' many lies._

"_**It is**_." She says this softly, as if hoping that he doesn't hear it, that they can both just ignore it, and that the little thing between them won't crumble into dust.

But he hears it and it's like he was punched in the stomach. It's one thing to suspect that she's holding things back, it's another to have it confirmed.

_How could you, Liv? Don't you see the position this puts me in?_

"_**Um, it's a maid and her young daughter**_."

"_**Okay, that would have been helpful to know**_**." **Despite all his efforts, the frustration seeps through Rafael's words. And he doesn't care. Right now he doesn't give a damn if her feelings are hurt.

There's so much more that he wants to say but he doesn't. _Focus, Rafael, this is not the time. __**Remember what we're here for**_. "_**Why didn't you tell me?**_"

While Rafael's done a good job of tamping down his emotions, Benson can hear the hurt underneath the frustration and the anger. She'd hurt him with her lack of trust. And another small part of her breaks inside. She knows she can't blame Lewis entirely for this, she should have told him this at least but she'd been too frightened. Too frightened that the floodgates would open and that she'd tell Rafael everything. And she couldn't - can't - have that.

The burden was hers alone to carry. Not anyone else's.

_I'm so sorry, Rafael. I would have spared you this if I could._

Fuck Lewis. He ruins everything he touches, even when he's not there. Is this always going to be how things are?

"_**I, um, must have just blanked**__."_

Rafael exhales slowly. _Come on, Olivia, that's bullshit and we both know it. Don't you have enough respect for me to not treat me like a fool?_

"_**Please don't lie to me**_." He snaps.

And the strands of that tentative thing between them just keep unraveling. But there's nothing Benson can do, the strands just keep slipping through her fingers with each lie she keeps telling. _Oh, Rafael, forgive me._

He looks at her keenly and she's forced to meet his glance. His eyes are disappointed, angry, and the hurt there makes her feel even worse.

"_**Did they see anything**__?" _He asks urgently, his eyes narrowed on her face.

Liv starts to speak quickly, "_**I heard Lewis coaxing them back into the house…I got worried for the girl and that's when I broke free**_."

That part at least sounded natural, she'd rehearsed that line so many times. The lies are easier to tell now. She could almost believe them herself. And it's better that way.

Then she won't have to live with what she actually had done. She may even be able to sleep at night again. Maybe.

"_**I thought it was unsafe for them to stay in the house while Lewis was there**_."

There. That made sense. Maybe he'd buy it.

He didn't.

She apparently wasn't selling well enough. And if he wasn't buying it, the jury might not either. And, once again, she's afraid.

_**He could walk again, Liv**_.

Barba could see his case starting to fracture in front of him. After all he had done to prove himself to her, how could she not have trusted him? How had she allowed him to get broadsided like this?

_Olivia, I thought you trusted me to fight for you._

Shaking his head, he almost says that. But he restrains himself, gathers his armor close to him. To hell if he was going to let her see how much this had hurt. What's one more betrayal in a long line of them? That's what happens when you let your walls down, when you let someone in.

When you let your emotions distract you from the job at hand.

This… whatever _this _was…between them…. was a mistake. It shouldn't have happened.

Not now.

And possibly not ever.

_How can I be with you if I can't trust you? If you can't trust _**me**_?_

"_**That's your story?" **_He asks her abruptly, now with tired resignation.

She looks at him with a startled kind of hurt. "_**What? You're gonna bring it up?"**_

"_**I have to**_**. **_**Before Lewis does**_."

Benson looks down at her hands. She knows he's right. He has to do it. Honestly, she'd rather him do it first than Lewis. He's good at damage control.

"For what it's worth, Rafael, I'm sorry." She says softly. "I didn't know…"

"Didn't know _what_, Liv? That you'd be caught?" Rafael says sharply, unable to totally restrain himself. "That an omission would come back to bite us both in the ass? Come on, you know better than that."

"I didn't mean for you to be sandbagged like that." Liv's eyes are troubled and he almost feels sorry for her.

"Well, I was. So this is where we are." He jams his hands in his coat. "Lewis is probably going to put the mother on the stand in the next day or two. I'll try to contain the damage as best as I can but…" he shrugs as if to say _there's very little I can do with this clusterfuck._

The air is thick with the unspoken words that both of them want to say to one another. Liv wanting to tell him everything but knowing she can't. Rafael wanting to unleash his frustration and hurt and _why did you do this? You could have trusted me, Olivia. _Both of them stand there for a few moments, out in the cold, in a silence that's no longer comfortable.

There are too many lies hovering unspoken.

And, all of a sudden, he's just so weary and tired of it all and he just wants to get as far away from her as he can. From now on, he'll simply be her counselor. It's easier this way, for both of them.

She can go to Lindstrom if she needs someone.

She deserves the best fighter in her corner, which he will be.

But that's it. That's all he'll give her.


End file.
